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Helen Crowley, Secretary General of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation, delivered the 2025 Distinguished Lecture at the QuakeCoRE Annual Meeting, held on 2-4 September in Ōtepoti Dunedin, New Zealand.
QuakeCoRE is New Zealand’s Centre for Earthquake Resilience, a Centre of Research Excellence funded by the Tertiary Education Commission. Its mission is to advance earthquake resilience through system-level science and integrated collaborations across engineering, physical and social sciences.
This year’s meeting drew its largest attendance to date, with more than 270 participants, including delegates from Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. The gathering provided a platform for showcasing innovative research, capacity development, and international knowledge exchange.
Engineering the Future
Introduced by Programme Area Leader Brendon Bradley, Helen presented her lecture “Engineering the Future – How Seismic Risk Models Can Build More Resilient Societies.”
Her address emphasised the critical role of national and global seismic risk models in preparedness, recovery, and long-term resilience. Drawing on GEM’s achievements over the past 15 years, she outlined milestones such as the development of the Global Seismic Hazard Mosaic, the release of the Global Seismic Hazard Model (2018, updated in 2023), and the creation of a global taxonomy for building classification.
“Earthquakes don’t kill people – buildings do,” Helen said. “By providing robust hazard and risk models, we can help communities prepare, recover, and plan for a safer and more resilient future.”
She also described GEM’s ongoing work in exposure and vulnerability modelling, the challenge of keeping models up to date in a rapidly changing world, and the role of artificial intelligence in supporting model updates.
Looking Forward
Helen highlighted future directions for GEM, including the integration of the carbon cost of earthquakes into the next release of the global seismic risk model, scheduled for 2026. She also noted the value of closer collaboration between GEM and QuakeCoRE, pointing to the mutual benefits of linking local seismic initiatives with global insights.
The Annual Meeting underscored the importance of combining national expertise with international collaboration to advance resilience science. GEM’s participation reflected its commitment to open knowledge exchange and to strengthening partnerships across the global earthquake engineering community.
For more information, visit the QuakeCoRE Annual Meeting page.
https://quakecore.nz/annual-meeting/
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