Leading scientists and representatives of international organizations and companies agreed that the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) should become the key instrument for estimating earthquake risk worldwide. The GEM Outreach Meeting, held 8-10 June in Schloss Hohenkammer and hosted by GEM’s main private founder Munich Re Group, brought together 130 key stakeholders (both public and private) and distinguished experts from over 40 countries. This first global meeting since the constitution of the GEM Foundation in March 2009, reinforced the need for an independent, uniform standard for calculating earthquake hazard and risk as well as for a critical instrument to support decisions and actions to reduce earthquake losses worldwide. GEM, a genuine public-private initiative, offers a unique chance for countries and organizations to obtain state-of-the art information on seismic risk and its socio-economic impact, via open-source software.

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