Introduction
The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion consists of a director (the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and staff members (such as the vice ministers of related ministries and agencies). Underneath them are the "Policy Committee" and the "Earthquake Research Committee," composed of staff from related government offices and academia. The "Policy Committee" implements the planning of basic policy concerning the promotion of earthquake research. It also coordinates budgets and other administrative work and deals with matters such as evaluation-based publications. The "Earthquake Research Committee" holds regular meetings on a monthly basis and classifies and analyzes research and observation results, as well as study outcomes. It does this in order to evaluate seismic activity in a comprehensive manner and to publish evaluation results. In addition, ad hoc meetings are held in response to damaging earthquakes or marked seismic activity. The meeting seeks to assess the current activity and the probability of aftershocks. The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion formulated its new policy, which was titled: "New Promotion of Earthquake Research - Comprehensive Basic Policies for the Promotion of Seismic Research through the Observation, Measurement, and Survey -." This policy is a guideline of earthquake research for the next 10 years, and was released in 2009 (revised in September 2012).
