National Coordinating Centre

As the centre of operations for the CLSA research platform , the National Coordinating Centre (NCC) manages many of the logistical processes associated with a national and geographically distributed long-term study.

 As part of its mandate, the NCC leads the continuing development of the scientific content of the CLSA, conducts methodological research and data linkage, manages participants retention and engagement,  leads the implementation of the follow-up waves, oversees the data collection operations across the country and continues to develop standard operating procedures and protocols for accommodating participants for data collection (e.g. cognitive impairment).

The NCC is also responsible for developing and updating the CLSA suite of software, supporting the overall IT needs of the CLSA, providing ongoing staff training and documentation for the Data Collection Sites (DCS) and the Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) sites, developing the Quality Management System for all aspects of the CLSA operations and playing a central role in the assessment of data quality, data management and archiving. In addition, the NCC is responsible for the overall budget and financial agreements, management of the core CLSA infrastructure, communications and partnership development for the CLSA platform.

The NCC works closely with the other CLSA enabling units, including the Biorepository and Bioanalysis Centre (BBC) and the Data Curation Centre (DCC), to facilitate the data management of the CLSA platform. The NCC also supports the CLSA Data Access and Sample Committee to process the applications to access CLSA data.

The NCC is affiliated with McMaster University and is located at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Parminder Raina, the lead principal investigator for the CLSA, serves as director of the NCC, and Ine Wauben serves as managing director.