The Meridian process emerged from the first Meridian conference, hosted in the UK in 2005 and the subsequent conferences held in Hungary, Sweden, Singapore, the United States of America, Taiwan, Qatar, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Spain and Mexico in 2016. Every year, a different country hosts the conference, and our aim is to rotate the conference to different regions to increase participation in the Meridian community. Any country which is engaged in CIIP and has attended more than one Meridian conference and understands the Meridian process can offer to host a forthcoming Meridian conference. 

The Meridian process has a steering committee that includes all previous hosts, and a programme committee to assist the forthcoming host country in developing the annual conference. Membership of the programme committee is flexible to obtain a mix of expertise and regional coverage of CIIP interest.

The Meridian process aims to exchange ideas and initiate actions for the cooperation of governmental bodies on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) issues globally. It explores the benefits and opportunities of cooperation between governments and provides an opportunity to share best practices from around the world. The Meridian process seeks to create a community of senior government policymakers in CIIP by fostering ongoing collaboration. The Meridian process recognizes that it is only by working together that we can each advance our national CIIP goals and objectives.

Participation in the Meridian Process is open to all countries/economies and is aimed at senior government policy-makers involved in CIIP-related issues. Every country/economy is invited to take part in the Meridian process, and is encouraged to attend the annual Meridian conference. Countries which have sent a delegation of Government CIIP policy makers to attend a Meridian conference are considered valid members of the Meridian community. The current list of Meridian member countries is:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d'lvoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Repiblic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zeeland, Norway, Oman, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uganda, Uruguay, Vietnam.

The Meridian website is hosted by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) for use by all Meridian community members. Any government official who attends, or has attended, a Meridian conference can access the resource of the website and should submit a request for access on the website. This will provide access to the Meridian directory and other valuable resources from the Meridian community.