The responsibilities of the ASPIRE-MHS Administrative Core combine to provide the necessary management and governance structures to successfully implement the proposed scale-up research project in Myanmar and the Capacity Building activities in Myanmar, Viet Nam, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, in partnership with co-investigators from Australia. The management structure, core responsibilities of collaborating partners, communication and publication planning, and contingency and risk management are all part of what is included in the Administrative Management Strategy. The ASPIRE-MHS administrative core will be based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU), Department of Mental Health, which has broad experience in NIH grants management to oversee the day-to-day program and fiscal management of this multi-component grant. The administrative hub faculty will work with a Myanmar-based Principal Investigator and co- investigators and capacity building co-investigators to ensure regular communications with consumer groups and policy makers through the specific activities included in the scale-up research and capacity building proposals. Given extensive experience working in LMIC setting, we are well situated to pro-actively address barriers and generate contingency plans to mitigate risks that may arise at the projects are undertaken. The administrative core is also situated to coordinate the different U19 collaborators, ensuring shared leadership in research and dissemination activities between High- and Low- and Middle Income Country researchers. This will be operationalized through shared leadership of the research and capacity building subcommittees, shared participation in annual meetings and shared authorship on publications and dissemination materials. Another main role of the administrative core is to facilitate collaboration between researchers and those directly affected by the research (consumers, stakeholders, participating organizations) and those who will most likely use the research (policy and decision makers). Additional stakeholders that will be coordinated through the Administrative Core include program staff from USAID, who are co-funders of some of the Myanmar-based work and the NIMH steering committee integral to the coordination of all the U19 hubs. Another responsibility of the administrative core will be to coordinate sharing of materials through online and web-based portals. The Administrative core will also be responsible for updating Hub stakeholders and the general public through bi- annual newsletters. Finally, an important role of the Administrative Hub will be to monitor the administrative, research and capacity building timelines, oversee tracking of milestones, including annual reviews, and where necessary update timelines to address unforeseen barriers. The ASPIRE-MHS administrative core is innovative through the prioritization of partnerships with mental health service users, the creation of paired teams for capacity development, and the use of online team management software to improve collaboration.
