Original structure

The role of the Governance and Advisory Group is to provide independent advice and opinion to the consortium. The Group considers the key risks, deliverables and strategic goals of COG-UK, and the overall governance and operational structure.

The Steering Group provide guidance upon significant strategic and operational matters relating to research. The Group may put in place any structure to effectively manage the consortium’s research and sign off any reports to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). The Chair of The Steering Group is Professor Sharon Peacock.

Professor Sharon Peacock is the Executive Director and Chair of the consortium.

The Management and Administration Group is composed of the Communications Team, Publications Team, Project Management Team, Internal Policies Team and the Administration Team, and is led by Associate Director Dr Katerina Galai.

The Group covers all external and internal communications, governance, strategic planning, legal and financial functions of the consortium.

Sampling centres, sequencing centres, working groups and a core sampling strategy make up the Operations Group of the consortium, lead by Director of Operations Dr Catherine Ludden.

Working groups:

• Sample Logistics Working Group – Lead: Dr Catherine Ludden, University of Cambridge.
• Metadata and Patient Linkage/Epidemiology/Health Informatics Working Group – Lead: Dr Ewan Harrison, University of Cambridge.
• Sequencing Working Group – Lead: Dr Josh Quick, University of Birmingham.
• Data/Bioinformatics Working Group – Lead: Professor Nick Loman, University of Birmingham.
• Clinical and Virology Working Group – Lead: Professor Judy Breuer, University College London.
• Mutations Research Working Group – Lead: Dr Alessandro Carabelli, University of Cambridge.
• Wastewater Working Group – Lead: Dr Steve Paterson, University of Liverpool and Professor Tom Connor, Cardiff University and Public Health Wales NHS Trust.

The Data Group deals with how we collect, store and manage data about people’s SARS-CoV-2 samples. This includes how we link sample data with other epidemiological and clinical information, upload data into the central CLIMB-COVID-19 database, and how we keep the data secure and confidential. The Group is led by Director of Data Sciences Dr Ewan Harrison.