The responsibility of the Administrative Core is the overall planning and coordination of the research and dissemination activities conducted by the GC-HARMS consortium. This includes fostering interdisciplinary interactions through regularly scheduled meetings involving the research project leadership, fiscal and evaluative oversight, resource management, and coordinated interactions with advisory boards and the NIEHS Steering Committee. The GC-HARMS consortium consists of a community-based participatory research project (Project 1), three other research projects (Projects 2-4), a Community Outreach and Dissemination Core (CODC), a coalition of community partners represented by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (Baton Rouge, LA), the Center for Environmental and Economic Justice (Biloxi, MS), the Mississippi Coalition for Vietnamese Fisherfolk (Gulfport, MS), and the United Houma Nation (Houma, LA), and this Administrative Core. The consortium's principal academic partners are the University of Texas Medical Branch, the University of Pennsylvania, and Texas A&M University at Galveston, with collaborative imput from Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of Arizona (AU). The goals of the Administrative Core are to: 1) foster strong interdisciplinary interactions and promote integration amongst the research projects and CODC;2) manage the fiscal resources attached to the GC-HARMS consortium;3) organize and schedule the monthly videoconferenced meetings involving the Project leaders, the semiannual Stakeholder Advisory Board meetings, and the annual External Advisory Board meeting;4) work with the CODC to maximize bidirectional communication between the GC-HARMS consortium and the community partners;and 5) provide access to biostatisticians and biomedical informaticians through the Integrative Health Science Facility Core within the UTMB P30 Core Center in Environmental Toxicology.
A cooperative research program such as the GC-HARMS consortium requires effective administrative and intellectual oversight. The Administrative Core provides the requisite executive and managerial structure to ensure that the goals and obligations of the consortium are realized.
