The IISEE has proposed following two new JICA training courses
1) "Earthquake Disaster Mitigation" (Doctor Degree Program)
Date (first course): March 2010 - March 2013 (3 yr)
Number of Participants: 3
Target Regions: Asia, Middle-East and Central- and South America
Following three Sub-Courses are available in cooperation with universities.
Seismology: Univ. of Tsukuba, Doctor of Science or Earth Science
Earthquake Engineering: Univ. of Tsukuba, Doctor of Engineering
Disaster Mitigation: GRIPS, Doctor of Disaster Management
2) "Technology and Policy for Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Management"
Date (first course): Autumn 2009 (2 weeks)
Number of Participants: 12
Target Regions: Asia, Pacific and Middle-East
Target Participants in both courses are mainly ex-participants of IISEE trainings. The Need
Survey by JICA has just started as shown in the next article.
Nobuo HURUKAWA
Director, IISEE

Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and JICA have started the Needs Survey for
JICA training courses. For the IISEE to accept participants from your country to the
2009-2010 IISEE training courses, which will start on the end of September 2009, it is
necessary that your country should select the JICA "Seismology, Earthquake Engineering and
Disaster Management Policy" and/or "Tsunami Disaster Mitigation" Courses with high
priority. We expect that your institution will request your Government to choose these courses
with high priority among JICA training courses in the menu that JICA provide for your
country. Therefore, we would like to ask you to encourage your institution to make actions in
this direction. Since the deadline of the Needs Survey is the end of August, your immediate
action is highly appreciated. We are looking forward to accepting participants from your
institution in the near future.
Nobuo HURUKAWA
Director, IISEE

The IISEE has established the International Platform for Reducing Earthquake Disaster
(IPRED) in cooperation with UNESCO and representatives of major earthquake-prone
countries (Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru, Romania, and Turkey). The
IISEE would act as the Centre of Excellence (COE) of this project, and assist the activities
and maintenance of the network/platform. Dr. Koyama and I attended the first session of the
IPRED held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 8-10 July. For further information, please
visit following websites and contact me:
http://portal.unesco.org/science/en/ev.php-URL_ID=6584&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SEC
TION=201.html
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=43064&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=
201.html
Nobuo HURUKAWA
Director, IISEE

We are pleased to announce that "IS-Tokyo2009" will be held in Tsukuba on June 15 - 17 2009.
The "IS-Tokyo2009" conference is the International Conference on Performance-Based Design
in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering subtitled with - from case history to practice -,
which is organized by the Technical Committee 4 of International Society for Soil Mechanics
and Geotechnical Engineering and Japanese Geotechnical Society, and will be held at
Tsukuba International Congress Center, Tsukuba, Japan on June 15 - 17, 2009. We are sure
that this conference will serve as a good opportunity for participants to exchange information
and knowledge as well as for exhibitors to disseminate the information and knowledge among
conference participants. For more details, you are requested to visit the following website,
http://www.comp.tmu.ac.jp/IS-Tokyo/
We look forward to seeing you all in Tsukuba.
P.S. The deadline for abstract submission is soon to come by the end of this July. The call for
exhibitors is now underway.
Professor Takaji Kokusho
Chairman of IS-Tokyo2009