Introduction

Asian-Pacific Network of Centers for Earthquake Engineering Research (ANCER) was founded in October 2001 with 7 national centers on earthquake engineering in the Asian-Pacific region.  It has expanded globally and become a unique international nonprofit, professional organization with 11 national centers in 2006. The main objective of ANCER is to coordinate and optimize limited resources in the respective countries to develop and implement, on a cooperative, center-to-center basis, innovative engineering methods and new enabling technologies for design, construction, maintenance, management and renewal of the built environment to achieve the maximum seismic hazard reduction and minimum life- cycle cost.

2007 ANCER Meeting

After the great success of previous meetings held in Harbin, China, in 2002, Hawaii, US, in 2004, Jeju, Korea, in 2005, the 2007 ANCER Meeting will be held in Hong Kong, China, under the leadership of Prof. Jan-Ming Ko, President of ANCER. The main objective of this series of meeting is to provide an opportunity for researchers of each center to share the latest knowledge and techniques across a broad range of Earthquake Engineering and to provide young researchers with a chance to build up their own human links of cooperation.

The focus of the 2007 meeting will be on the issues of earthquake engineering for regions of moderate seismicity, and experiences that can be learnt from regions of strong seismicity. The Hong Kong government is now actively considering in drafting a new seismic code to be incorporated in building regulations. This meeting will provide an opportunity for local as well as international experts to contribute to its development.