Besides providing ongoing care, The Valerie Fund Children's Centers belong to the International Children's Oncology Group. This group "unites over 8,000 experts in over 200 hospitals, universities and cancer centers into a global team dedicated to the cure of all children with cancer." Participating in COG, utilizing their protocols and collecting data for their studies require dedication of a considerable amount of staff time because scores of open COG protocols can be in use at the same time in addition to supportive care protocols. This requires that every center have clinical research associates on staff to track and report every single patient who is on a COG protocol.