Supported by a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education grant, this project is identifying community partnerships with local research projects, providing workshops on Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE) development and place-based education for collaborators, developing a network informational hub within the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) website, and evaluating the network. For the incubator phase of this project, the evaluation will focus primarily on tracking the quality of implementation of the planned network activities and documenting outputs. We will collect feedback on project activities, including the network hub initiation workshop, monthly web conferences, webinar trainings, and the SERC website, using formative evaluation activities (feedback forms, interviews with key stakeholders). Data on local results of collaborative activities of the research network shall be collected via a survey of participating local research projects and research networks. The survey will collect data on identified research opportunities within each community, stage of CURE training and course development, and local research partners. Through social network analysis of survey data and network hub development within the SERC website, the degree of collaborative engagement among partners and across the network will also be documented.