# Administrative Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $678,145

## Abstract

ADMINISTRATIVE CORE – ABSTRACT
The Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative (ChicagoCHEC) Administrative Core (AC) leverages a shared
governance model in order to fulfill its responsibilities to establish mechanisms and infrastructure that promote
planning, communication, interaction, integration, and evaluation that support the broad spectrum of research,
education, and outreach activities to advance cancer health equity. ChicagoCHEC builds on the solid foundation
of a 10-year collaborative track record that includes our first NCI U54 Comprehensive Partnership to Advance
Cancer Health Equity (CPACHE) award. The AC, led by a tri-institutional MPI team, capitalizes on the strengths
of each institution and leverages those strengths to build cancer research capacity at two minority serving
institutions University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), and to expand
cancer disparities research at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University
(NU-LCC). AC leadership is instrumental in guiding our Partnership, identifying resources, building collaborative
ties, capacity building, and helping facilitate faculty and students advancement in cancer research, education,
and outreach within the framework of institutional policies. The AC team from UIC, NEIU and NU-LCC have
worked together in varying capacities for the past 10 years and are a well-integrated team, laying the groundwork
for a strong collaboration upon which to launch and sustain ChicagoCHEC’s next chapter. To guide operations
and ensure best practices and the realization of targeted milestones in all Partnership activities, we will leverage
our established standard operating protocol, a full operations manual, and detailed logic models that guide
Partnership activities and evaluation processes. Our AC is guided by an Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) and
a Program Steering Committee (PSC). We now plan to further advance the foundation built through our initial
U54 award to fulfill the following Specific Aims: (1) Provide overall support for ChicagoCHEC activities, ensuring
integration, coordination, collaboration, and fiscal administration across the Projects and Cores; (2) Refine and
maintain communication processes and structures to enhance the overall visibility of the ChicagoCHEC
Partnership; (3) Facilitate mechanisms to optimize integration with, and efficient utilization of, institutional
resources within the partnering institutions NU-LCC, UIC, and NEIU; (4) Organize and maintain a robust pipeline
for continuous recruitment of students and faculty from minority and underrepresented backgrounds into this
Partnership; and (5) Drive iterative and robust evaluation of all ChicagoCHEC Partnership activities.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10692817
- **Project number:** 5U54CA203000-09
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** MELISSA A. SIMON
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $678,145
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2015-09-24 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10692817

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10692817, Administrative Core (5U54CA203000-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10692817. Licensed CC0.

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