During 2008, CUSUR made the establishment of its envisioned “analytic sectors” [Economic, Humanitarian, Diplomatic and Security] a priority; in 2009, it took steps to provide "institutional wherewithal" to the project— entitled the US-Ukraine "Working Group"; the process included the selection of a chair/head of secretariat and ‘four experts’ for each sector. In 2010, the ‘experts’ will be provided with their ‘task lists’.

In review, the four designated sectors are:

Economic Affairs: [US-UA] Trade, Investment, Technical Assistance, Energy Issues

Security Affairs: [US-UA] Training - Defense/Intel, Coordination - Defense/Intel, Joint Operations - Defense/Intel, Organized Crime Issues

Humanitarian Affairs: [US-UA] Cultural Exchanges, Academic Exchanges, NGO Development, Mass Media Development

Diplomatic Affairs: [US-UA] GUAM/ Policy Cooperation, Visegrad Group/ Policy Cooperation, European Union/ Policy Cooperation, NATO/ Policy Cooperation

CUSUR’s analytic sectors, when operating in tandem, constitute the “US-Ukraine Working Group”. The Group presently consist of 20 (5 from each “area of analytic interest for CUSUR”) government, NGO and academic “experts” (selected from a larger pool of specialists) from Ukraine and an equal number of counterparts from the United States.

As declared in the CUSUR “finalized goal statement”, the purpose of the Group will be to: (a) monitor the existing state of relations between the US and Ukraine and (b) suggest ways and means to improve the ties.

More concretely, in 2010, the “experts” will be called upon to jointly write a series of “occasional papers” to identify “major issues” impacting on US-Ukrainian relations; in addition, they will be asked to partake in the “US-UA Leadership Summit”—to discuss and “anticipate” such issues for the following year. [CUSUR will hold the first such gathering in January 2011 in Boulder, Colorado].

The second task of the Center’s Working Group will be to organize and provide material for the informational centerpiece of CUSUR: its envisioned bi-annual Journal of Ukrainian Affairs. For each issue, each sector will elicit any number of articles from known US-UA government, NGO or academic specialists in their designated field and select one such article to be printed in the given number [four articles to an issue]. Likewise, for each issue, each sector will ask the various named specialists to write reviews of recently published works in the field and select one such review to be printed in the given number [four reviews to an issue].