Coordinating centers in cancer epidemiology research: the Asia Cohort Consortium coordinating center

Although it is tacitly recognized that a good coordinating center (CC) is essential to the success of any multisite collaborative project, very little study has been done on what makes a CC successful, why some CCs fail, or how to build a CC that meets the needs of a given project. Moreover, very little published guidance is available, as few CCs outside the clinical trial realm write about their work. The Asia Cohort Consortium (ACC) is a collaborative cancer epidemiology research project that has made strong scientific and organizational progress over the past 3 years by focusing its CC on the following activities: collaboration development; operations management; statistical and data management; and communications infrastructure and tool development. Our hope is that, by sharing our experience building the ACC CC, we can begin a conversation about what it means to run a CC for multi-institutional collaboration in cancer epidemiology, help other collaborative projects solve some of the issues associated with collaborative research, and learn from others.