3. Administration of the Project

3.1    Organisational structure

The organisation of the Global Asthma Network consists of:

• Collaborating Centres. Each with one named Principal Investigator (PI).
• National Coordinators. One per country may be appointed where there is more than one centre per country and only if there is an identified need for a National Coordinator, otherwise centres will operate independently and with input from the GAN Global Centre in Auckland and Data Centres in the UK, (Neil Pearce Neil.pearce@lshtm.ac.uk) and Spain (Luis García Marcos lgmarcos@um.es) (see section 21 for full contact details).
• The Global Asthma Network Steering Group. A Global Asthma Network Steering Group meeting is held at least annually.

The Steering Group, a group of 11 scientists from around the world, actively involved with the Global Asthma Network, meet face to face at least yearly to plan and discuss key issues. The Steering Group have regular skype conferences to discuss and resolve issues. Contact details of the Steering Group can be found in section 21 of this manual.

The Steering Group collectively oversee the broad regions of the world which has followed the regions used in ISAAC. These regions were based on the six WHO regions of the world, since these are widely used and logically organised. In some instances a WHO region has been split into subregions.

The WHO and Global Asthma Network regions are:

National Coordinators

Where there is more than one centre in a country, and if there is an identified need, a National Coordinator, may be appointed. The National Coordinator will usually, but not always, be a centre Principal Investigator who is chosen from one of the centres within that country. A National Coordinator will ideally, have had prior experience from being involved with ISAAC and be able to help centres in their country with any enquiries regarding implementation of the study and data entry, coding and transfer. The National Coordinator would decide whether or not to hold a National meeting.

3.1.1    Global Asthma Network collaborating centres

The responsibilities of each collaborating centre are to:

• complete and submit the Registration Document to the GAN Global Centre
• obtain funding
• obtain local ethical approval
• communicate with the National Coordinator (if applicable) and the GAN Global Centre in Auckland
• attend any planned implementation meetings (if a National Coordinator has been appointed)
• carry out the study according to the protocol in this manual
• send the completed data set to the GAN Global Centre
• complete and submit a Centre Report (example only section 14) and a map of the study area, to the GAN Global Centre at the completion of the fieldwork and at the time of submitting the data to info@globalasthmanetwork.org. A Global Asthma Network centre that participated in ISAAC may already have a map of sufficient quality to be used. The GAN Global Centre can confirm this.

Global Asthma Network centres will be issued with country and centre numbers by the GAN Global Centre following submission of an Expression of Interest form or at Registration.

3.1.2    Global Asthma Network National Coordinators

The responsibilities of National Coordinators (if one has been appointed) are to:

• recruit and register collaborating centres and identify Principal Investigators
• circulate the Manual
• organise translations (if required) and back translations to english of the questionnaires in accordance with the established protocol (section 18). Pre-coding of the questionnaires for the language used is a requirement of the fieldwork (see section 20 for more details). Translated questionnaires are then circulated to participating centres
• decide if a national meeting of collaborating centres is necessary, to disseminate information and discuss the implementation of the fieldwork
• communicate regularly with the collaborating centres and provide assistance
• organise a national meeting of collaborating centres to discuss the results, if required

3.1.3    The Global Asthma Network Steering Group

The responsibilities of the Steering Group are to:

• recruit centres
• coordinate the implementation and conduct of the fieldwork with each centre
• coordinate the analyses and publications of data
• organise international Global Asthma Network Steering Group meetings

3.2    Funding and ethical approval

Each research centre is responsible for obtaining its own funding and for obtaining ethical approval.