El congreso, considerado el más prestigioso en el área, estaba organizado en Sendai, Japan, pero ha sido suspendido debido a la pandemia. A pesar de ello, las actas del congreso han sido publicadas para su divulgación internacional.

La investigación, denominada "Seismic assessment of educational buildings according to fema p-58", fue realizada por los académicos Juan Carlos Vielma, Rodrigo F. Herrera y Felipe Muñoz La Rivera, junto con investigadores de la UCLA (Venezuela).

El resumen de la investigación es el siguiente (ENG): "Nowadays, the need to the seismic assessment of the performance existing structures is well recognized, in order to find solutions that mitigate the destructive effects of earthquakes both on people and on structures and contents. One of the cases of greatest interest to carry out this type of evaluation is that corresponding to educational buildings, due to two particular conditions they have: high occupancy and special contents. In order to carry out the evaluation of educational buildings, a set of RC framed buildings belonging to a university in Venezuela, with varying construction ages, has been selected, which implies the application of different design codes. The chosen methodology was FEMA P-58, adapted to local conditions. Additionally, the methodology has been implemented jointly with BIM modeling, which has allowed the complex information required to carry out the evaluation to be consolidated into a single model. The results show that buildings designed according to more recent design code exhibit lower seismic vulnerability, resulting in less expected losses".

Respecto a su participación, los académicos señalan que "es interesante poder estar presentes en estos eventos, ya que dan visibilidad a la Escuela de Ingeniería Civil PUCV en resto del mundo y nos permite acceder a los desafíos que debemos ponernos hacia el futuro en las temáticas estudiadas".