Adviser to the Study Director

The chair and the study director are a management team, and they complement each other's roles. This partnership is crucial to the success of a study. The study director works with the chair to design the meetings of the committee, prepare background materials for the committee, write or edit portions of the report, and stay in regular contact with all members of the committee. The study director also has the primary responsibility for monitoring the committee's progress relative to the study plan, tracking the project's financial status against a time-phased budget keyed to the plan, ensuring that the statement of task is being followed, and taking actions needed to keep the project on course. The chair serves as the study director's adviser and guides his or her actions. As partners in managing the study, they identify problems, agree on strategies to resolve them, and team up to keep the committee moving on schedule.

Prior to the first committee meeting, the chair should meet with the study director to review the statement of task in detail and design a tentative project work plan and meeting agenda that will be presented at the beginning of the first meeting for the committee to review.

At and between all committee meetings and events, the chair and study director should work in concert to manage committee activities effectively and guide the study process to a successful conclusion, with close attention to schedule and resource constraints.

The chair needs to work with staff and support them in their interaction with committee members. During the report review process, it is the responsibility of the chair and staff to ensure that each committee member has the opportunity to examine and concur with responses to reviewers' comments and to sign-off on the revised report before it is released to the sponsor and to the public. The chair should also work with the study director and committee to develop plans for the effective dissemination of the committee's report, and the engagement of the committee in the process.

The chair must understand what physical resources (staff personnel, number of meetings, consulting, and so forth) can be provided to the committee within the overall resources available to the project. If unforeseen circumstances lead the committee to revise the statement of task (i.e., its charge) or undertake work that would require expanding the schedule or budget, the chair should ensure that all options have been reasonably assessed and that the committee has provided the study director with a convincing rationale to present to the institution's leadership and the study's sponsor.

In the unlikely event that the chair experiences problems in working with the study director or other staff, this quickly should be brought to the attention of the unit head (usually the board or division director and on occasion the Executive Director of the commission or major unit). As the study nears completion, other support services within the National Academies will enter the process to help design a release plan, prepare the report for publication, and handle publicity around the release.