The Administrative Core provides the overall scientific leadership and management for the HNRC, with a primary aim of ensuring integrated, coherent, and effective scientific operations. Within the Core, the Executive Team (ET) provides programmatic leadership and oversight of the Center regarding resource allocation and future research directions and projects. The decisions of the ET are informed by both external and internal formal review, advice and feedback. The external Scientific Advisory Board meets annually to evaluate Center progress and to recommend future scientific directions. Internally, the Council of Investigators sets policy and closely monitors scientific progress. Valued local input to the ET also comes from the Community Advisory Board (community providers, advocates, and leaders) and Participant Advisory Board (study participants). The leadership's key decision- making functions are implemented via four interacting components: the Coordinating Unit which has overall responsibility for executing and coordinating Center activities, including organizing the distribution of Center resources, facilitating information dissemination to scientific and general communities, and ensuring compliance with institutional and Federal policies; the Data Management and Statistics Unit , which processes all Center-related data, ensures seamless interaction among Cores and associated projects, and supports Center websites and videoconferencing; the Statistics Unit , which provides statistical services at all study stages, from design to final analyses; and the Participant Accrual and Retention Unit, which recruits cohorts of interest, maintains the longitudinal cohort, and manages a registry of potential study participants. Each of these Units also engages in methods development. In addition, strong working groups assist and guide the Core: the Research Review Committee reviews requests for Center resources and serves as a venue for the discussion of current and proposed studies and manuscripts; the HNRC Operations Workgroup, in which key managers and project coordinators address project implementation and troubleshooting, and the Human Subjects Committee, which monitors human subjects and IRB issues, particularly relating to safeguarding confidentiality. The structures and processes of the Core ensure the operation of a truly multidisciplinary research center and foster a wide-ranging nimbleness and responsiveness not only to priorities announced at the national level by policy (e.g., the NIH) and those expressed by the national neuroAIDS research community (e.g., our nation- wide collaborating universities), but also within our home institution (HNRC scientific Core leaders, other UCSD HIV research groups).
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