The idea to create a vehicle for such dialog was born at the First International Conference on Community Psychology in Puerto Rico in June 2006 during the symposium facilitated by Marek Wosinski (USA), Geoff Nelson (Canada), Adrian Fisher (Australia) and Gil Line (USA).

Participants of the conference very strongly accentuated the fact that such basic concepts as social justice, prevention, intervention, empowerment, sense of community, etc. may have different meanings depending on a cultural context. They agreed that to assure international collaboration on social issues there is a need for a platform where researchers, students and community organizations worldwide could exchange ideas, visions and experiences to unify the language we use when talking about community.

With the support of Arizona State University (USA) and Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Hummanities (Poland),  Marek Wosinski with a team of students began to construct the first version of the website. The project was introduced to the Sixth European Conference on Community Psychology in Opole (Poland) where most of the participants agreed that to educate well future community leaders we have to introduce a global perspective on community issues. Students preparing themselves to the leadership role should understand that events happening on the global level affect local communities, and that their local community may have some influence on global affairs. After this conference the following colleagues agreed to further collaborate on the development of the project: 

• Joanna Ochocka from the Centre for Community Based Research in Canada(who also agreed to coordinate a participatory research project evaluating development and impact of UCP-SARnet)
• Asyia Siddiquee from Research Institute for Health and Social Change at the Manchester Metropolitan University (England)
• Liz Cunningham from Health and Social Policy Research Center at the University of Brighton (England)
• Caterina Arcidiacono from Department of Relational Sciences "G. Iacono" Universita Federico II Napoli(Italy)
• Anna Bokszczanin from University of Opole (Poland)
• Katarzyna Winkowska-Nowak from Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities (Poland)

Since then during regular monthly meetings online the group has been consulting on the progress of the development of the network. The Leadership Team located at the Arizona State University has been implementing the directives and with the support from ASU Psychology Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Informational Technology Office developed the UCP-SARnet web application. Numerous people assisted us in this process with advice and support (please see Acknowledgments).

In July 2007 UCP-SARnet started collabo the ration with Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).  Since then UCP-SARnet has been working on creating knowledge partnerships with other global networks, developing a strong international Advisory Board and filling the platform with new content.

UCP-SARnet was officially launched on April 18, 2008 during the conference organized by the Centre for Community Based Research (CCBR) and hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovations (CIGI) in Waterloo, Canada.

Shortly after the official launch,  UCP-SARnet's leadership team  started creating groups of Regional Coordinators around the world and inviting presenters at two mentioned above conferences to publish their presentations on its portal. As a result the structure of navigation has been reorganized by creating  two options of searching for the content of the site: by country and by topic.

In May, 2008 UCP-SARnet was presented to the participants of CU Expo in Victoria (Canada) where it became a member of the Global Alliance for Community Engaged Research.  In June, 2008 UCP-SARnet was presented to the participants of II European Conference on Community Psychology.

Since Summer 2007 untill 2009 UCP-SARnet has been part of IGLOO Network   Due to structural changes at CIGI IGLOO network discontinued its activity in 2009.

In November 2008 Global Governance Innvoations Network (one of the communities created by CIGI to promote innovative solutions to global challenges) organized a symposium with participation of representations of networks from Africa, Australia, Europe and North America to discuss effective ways of global networking.  From this date UCP-SArnet until summer 2009 UCP-SARnet was a member of this network. Unforunately, due to organizational changes at CIGI, this network has ended its activities.

In December 2008 UCP-SARnet begun migration to a new upgraded portal powered by IGLOO Software.  The process was completed in January 2009.

Inspired by the World Civic Forum organized by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in Seoul in May 2009, as well as by the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education and Education Leaders Forum organized by UNESCO and Microsoft in Paris in July 2009, UCP-SARnet focused its mission on the Millennium Development Goals.  In fall 2009 Executive Team was working on relevant changes in structure and content of our portal. At the same time we have been developing partnerships with univeristies and communty organizations in China and India. 

Currently our platform is in the proces of further upgrading.