Administrative Core

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ADMINISTRATIVE CORE: SUMMARY The Administrative Core (AC) supports work in all of the Population Studies Center’s (PSC) primary research areas (PRAs) and advances the overarching objective of this P2C application - to support research to design, create, and analyze new data to advance population science. The AC oversees and coordinates activities and resources across all three Cores and maximizes the efficiency of funding for population dynamics research by reducing administrative burdens. We will continue to focus particularly on the needs of junior scientists, and newly on enhancing the broader research community’s access to these resources. The AC Lead and the P2C Steering Committee carry out their duties with the assistance of senior administrative staff and shared services via the Institute for Social Research (ISR). They are responsible for planning, coordinating, and evaluating the activities of the Cores and the pursuit of Overall and Core-specific Aims. They review and recruit Center affiliates, oversee budgetary and resource distribution decisions to increase synergies across Cores, and assess the activities of all Cores. AC activities are designed to enhance scientific impact and innovation, including faculty meetings, coffee hours, and a Brown Bag Series. We will also pursue two new activities, if funded, to more effectively support the careers of junior scientists: regular check-in chats with groups of junior PSC researchers and the AC Lead, and junior affiliate wraparound strategy sessions held by the P2C Steering Committee. We also propose to add additional opportunities for all affiliates to convene and collaborate, with new Specific Aims Clinics and Research Incubator Groups organized around our PRAs. The AC also provides comprehensive research project management. Services centrally provided by the AC staff minimize the financial and time burdens associated with administering research projects by providing comprehensive support through the project lifecycle, including assistance with grant proposal preparation, managing awarded funding, hiring and managing project staff, and connecting affiliates with ways to disseminate their findings. AC staff maximize the efficiency of service provision by assisting PSC affiliates in accessing a range of essential services provided elsewhere at ISR and U-M. In a new initiative, the AC will coordinate outreach services to engage population scientists at institutions that are not funded by the NICHD Population Dynamics P2C Program. The Steering Committee and staff will work to ensure that research community members obtain access to services across all three Cores as appropriate. In the absence of the AC, our productive PSC affiliates would need to devote large amounts of time to administrative tasks and to seeking out resources across the Administrative, Development and Scientific and Technical Cores, reducing productivity and limiting their contributions to population dynamics research.