The organisational scheme is set up to accommodate a large, worldwide organisation with an international programme leader, who coordinates the duties of the national leaders and the task force leaders on a daily basis. The international programme leader may have support staff to overlook the accountancy and other administrative duties of the programme.

The international project leader carries out the decisions of the Executive Committee. He/she will regularly be in contact with the task force leaders. The Executive Committee, consisting of the national team leaders and the chair of the Advisory Board, will convene at regular basis and as often as the progress of the programme requires. One of the support staff members will act as a secretary of the Executive Committee.

The Advisory Board will consist of well-known scientists and people with experience in the fields needed to be able to realise the programme. At this time we think of people with a large experience in running a (inter)national organisations. The members of the Advisory Board are likely to come from nations participating in the project, but this is not a prerequisite.

The members of the national teams will collaborate in the various task forces. Although this will be the strongest bond, interactions with national teams will provide a broader general participation of all members of the team. To strengthen the mutual exchange of ideas and results meetings of the entire team are foreseen on a regular basis.

At present the programme is administred and coordinated by the Stichting (Foundation) EARTH, established on 1 September by the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, ASTronomical Research Organisation of the Netherlands (ASTRON) and a private Curaçao-based foundation JADE (for details see Who and Where)