The Quake Centre

The primary functions of the University of Canterbury Quake Centre is: To create an environment in which professionals and academics can collaboratively explore viable earthquake engineering solutions. This is done through hosting professional development opportunities at the Centre with industry professionals, carrying out modeling and experimental testing of different design methods, hosting international earthquake specialists, partnering with major international research institutions, and ultimately developing safe, ethical, cost-effective and practical earthquake infrastructure solutions. To evaluate the seismic risk of structures. This is done through analyzing the earthquake risk of different buildings, calculating economic losses in various hypothetical earthquake situations, and supporting the decision making of industries and communities in earthquake-prone areas, whether they are rebuilding, repairing or starting a new development. To promote professional development in seismic engineering. This is done by providing courses about earthquake and geotechnical engineering, offering new postgraduate qualifications in seismic engineering, promoting the uptake of new engineering solutions by earthquake professionals, and maintaining earthquake engineering codes. To raise community awareness about seismic risk and solutions. This is done through coordinating and implementing public seminars, facilitating public discussion and engagement with the issues, communicating with policy influencers, and providing outreach programmes to schools.