Coordination across multiple laboratories is a key challenge that U19 groups face. The Administrative Core will provide the organizational structure and administrative support needed for the team to function efficiently and will assist team members in communication and dissemination of research outcomes. This effort will be led by the Program Director, Dr. Greg DeAngelis, assisted by a group of experienced administrators. The primary objectives of the Administrative Core will be to provide governance of the research program, to facilitate communication and development of ideas, and to establish avenues for sharing information and resources.
Aim 1 will establish a governance structure for the research program, along with a set of policies and procedures for managing the team's activities. This structure will include establishing an Internal Advisory Committee consisting of the project and core leaders and an External Advisory Board, as well as a set of routines for communicating among team leaders, monitoring progress toward achieving goals, and dealing with any conflicts that may arise through negotiation and, if needed, mediation.
Aim 2 will facilitate team collaboration and communication, by establishing regular activities such as monthly meetings of the Internal Advisory Committee, joint laboratory meetings, and an annual workshop with all members of the research team as well as the External Advisory Board. The Administrative Core will also support laboratory visits as needed for intense collaborative work, along with training in common procedures and techniques that will be used across laboratories.
Aim 3 will share information among the team and disseminate tools and data to the community. The Administrative Core will oversee development of a program website that will serve three main goals. First, it will communicate the goals and importance of the research program to the public, as well as the important advances that will be made. Second, the website will provide links to public repositories where data, code, and tutorials will be shared with the broader neuroscience community, so that other researchers can benefit maximally from our group's work. Third, the website will provide an intranet for the research team to share preliminary results, analysis approaches, experimental techniques, and standard operating procedures. This website will be linked with the data infrastructure to be developed by the Data Science Core. The proposed U19 project team has highly relevant and complementary expertise, along with extensive experience of collaboration among its various members, which will facilitate cooperation across the group. Thus the project leaders are confident that the team will work well together to achieve the goals of this ambitious project to define the neural basis of causal inference, from perception to action.
