Superfund Research Program

Administrative Core

Project Leader: Akram N. Alshawabkeh
Grant Number: P42ES017198
Funding Period: 2010-2025

Project-Specific Links

Final Progress Reports

Year:   2019  2013 

Studies and Results

The Administrative Core provides Center leadership, direction, planning, scheduling and coordination. The PROTECT Directors, Alshawabkeh and Cordero, with support from Core staff, have continued the management and administration of the Center, including scientific, fiscal, training and research translation issues, working closely with the Executive Committee and the Scientific Advisory Committee to ensure coherence. In addition, they have continued to provide information on human subjects, animal welfare, quality assurance/quality control, and other required documentation as needed to institutional and governmental bodies responsible for oversight.

The Core has organized and coordinated several events to facilitate, monitor and coordinate the activities and ensure integration of cross-disciplinary activities within the multi-university Center projects and cores. These include weekly teleconference meetings that are dedicated to either administrative, scientific, training or research translation activities. At this meeting, minutes are taken and distributed to the PROTECT team, or a recording of the session is posted on the PROTECT website; this allows all parties to be informed of activities across institutions. In addition to the principal weekly meeting, the Core has also assisted in the setup of additional weekly meetings for several other cross-institutional working groups relating to data collection, as well as linking actively with the Research Translation and Training Cores to support their activities. The Core has also coordinated face-to-face meetings for the program teams and the advisory committees. The Core has also provided resources to encourage and allow projects to project interaction, coordination and planning, Principal among these is the Center's retreat, held in Dorado, Puerto Rico on January 16-20, 2013 and in Rio Grande on January 16-19, 2014, which facilitates and promotes interaction between the Center and the Scientific Advisory Committee, as well as other attendees, e.g. representatives from the EPA and the March of Dimes' Puerto Rico Local Chapter. The Program directors are working closely with Dr. Heather Henry, the NIEHS SRP Program Manager. In addition to direct coordination with NIEHS SRP, PROTECT has coordinated activities with other SRP programs; and participated at the annual SRP meeting in October 2013 in Baton Rouge, LA.

The Core has continued to maintain fiscal management and administrative services for all projects and participating institutions. The Core works closely with the Office of Research Administration and Finance at Northeastern to issue appropriate sub-awards, monitor resources and expenditures, and to follow all guidelines at participating institutions and relevant agencies. The Administrative Core handles all necessary documentation, reporting, and assessment following NIH guidelines. This includes annual reporting of research progress (i.e. 2590 forms), carryover (i.e. FFR), and annual updates to NIEHS program staff.

Significance

Managing multi-disciplinary and geographically distributed research and education teams requires a sophisticated administrative structure as there are significant challenges to coordinating multi-campus activities. The Administrative Core is key to providing infrastructure and support for the projects and cores to deliver at the Center level. The Core provides a formal structure for oversight, planning, coordination, and promotion of cross-disciplinary interaction among all of the projects and cores. The Core for PROTECT is critical, particularly because of the multi-institutional participation.