The 2011 Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering (PCEE) is organised and hosted by the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering Inc. The conference provides a forum for practitioners and researchers to present and evaluate the latest developments and experience in mitigating the effects of earthquake and earthquake related hazards.

The Technical Programme

This conference will challenge participants to define how to work toward "Building an Earthquake Resilient Society" by re-evaluating the requirements of a truly resilient society. Papers, presentations and posters included in the Technical  Programme include the following topic areas:

• Engineering Seismology: seismicity, ground and site effects, seismic hazard and risk analyses
• Social-Economical issues: human behaviour, education, insurance and public policy
• Geotechnical earthquake engineering: soils, liquefaction, foundation and soil-structure interaction
• Structural engineering: design of buildings, bridges, lifeline structures and non-structural components
• Seismic retrofit technologies and advanced aseismic solutions
• Experimental methods, information technology and collaborative tools
• Lessons learned from recent earthquakes
• Recent practical projects

The Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering

The first South Pacific Regional Conference on Earthquake Engineering was held at Victoria University, Wellington in May 1975. This conference, organised by the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, "acted as an invaluable forum for [the 160] designers and researchers sharing in the state-of-the-art of earthquake resistant design" according to the June NZNSEE Bulletin review (Vol. 8 No. 2, p170). It was so successful that 42 papers were presented at the second conference in May 1979, close to double the 24 presented at the first, and 38 papers were presented at the third in May 1983 (both also held at Victoria University).

The name was shortened to Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering for the fourth, in May 1987, to reflect the increasing portion of participants from the northern hemisphere. This conference, held in Wairakei (near Taupo, New Zealand) expanded to 106 papers. The fifth was held at the University of Auckland (95 papers in May 1991) and the sixth was a joint conference with the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, held at the University of Melbourne (109 papers in May 1995).

The Seventh PCEE, (136 papers in February 2003), was postponed to accommodate the twelfth world conference held in Auckland in 2000. The Eighth PCEE (161 papers in December 2007) was a joint conference with the Singapore Earthquake Engineering Society. This 2011 conference had 155 technical papers and a further 13 special presentations on the Canterbury earthquakes.

The conference has always provided a valuable contribution to earthquake engineering in New Zealand because it brings together both professionals and researchers from a range of disciplines and a number of countries, principally from the Pacific Rim, but frequently also from much further afield.