Below there is a yearly report on the progress in UCP-SARnet development made in year 2008.

During the year 2008 the Leadership Team has:

1. Created Regional Coordinators Teams in 20 countries. In the future these teams will transform into regional branches of UCP-SARnet.

2. Created 17 Special Interest Groups.

3. Reorganized the navigation on the site using two criteria of searching for resources: according to the topic and according to the region.

4. Invited two new members of Advisory Board: Arleen Schindler and Jerrie Ueberle.

5. Created two new partnerships: with the Global Interactions, Inc. and SIAS International University in China. Mr. Shawn Chen, Founder and President of SIAS University, is coming to Tempe for a meeting with the Vice President for ASU Global Engagement to discuss future collaboration with ASU. He will aso meet with our Team to discuss among other issues UCP-SARnet participation in celebration of 10th anniversary of SIAS University.)

6. Offered UCP-SARnet based courses for about 200 students. In the coming year about 200 students in ASU, Brighton (England) and Warsaw (Poland) will contribute to the content of regional pages by preparing projects on the topic: Impact of Cultural Context on the Organization and Effectiveness of Community Projects. By the end of 2009 we plan to edit a newsletter on community action and research in each country where we have a regional coordinator.

7. Presented UCP-SARnet project at the CU Expo in Victoria and at the Second International Conference on Community Psychology ion Lisbon. In Lisbon, UCP-SARnet (together with Community Tool Kit) was recommended as a platform for collaboration among community psychologists world wide.

8. Published on UCP-SARnet portal 102 presentations from CU Expo in Victoria and from the Second. Discussion forums for these presentations are open and will be available for students taking UCP-SARnet based courses.

In addition:

1. UCP-SARnet became a member of Global Alliance for Community Engaged Research.

2. UCP-SARnet was selected as a portal for a Capstone Course for the ASU Bachelor in Liberal Studies Online Program. In spring semester 25 students will take the course, we expect much higher numbers in the second half of the year.

3. UCP-SARnet has been accepted as a member of the Global Governance Innovations Network (IGLOO.org) and because of this the Centre for Governance Innovations (CIGI) will sponsor hosting UCP-SARnet portal on their server.

4. As result of this UCP-SARnet portal has been migrated to upgraded software offering user friendly and effective tools for networking. One of the most important upgrades was made by adding very efficient tools for communication among members of the network.

5. We participated in a meeting of an Organizational Committee of Community-University Expo, an international conference that will take place in Canada in 2011, and will be organized by the Centre for Community Based Research and UCP-SARnet in collaboration with CIGI, Wilfried Laurier University, University of Waterloo and local government. UCP-SARnet will serve as a platform for publicity for the conference, publish the content of all presentations and create interactive environment for further collaboration on presented topics. Finally, we are planning to bring all our active Regional Coordinators for a session on Multicultural Perspective on Community Leadership.

 6. Psychology Department at ASU assigned an office for the UCP-SARnet and its facilitators.

7. UCP-SARnet received from the ASU Dean of College of Liberal Arts funds for hiring an Assistant Facilitator for spring semester 2009

8. UCP-SARnet has received from Psychology Department funds for a student worker for calendar year 2009.

As of January 10 UCP-SARnet has 400 members in 40 countries and about 80 pending requests for membership put on hold because of migration of the portal.