The Research Value Mapping Program was founded at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996, focusing on evaluation of government-sponsored research projects, programs and institutions. Its initial funding source was the Department of Energy's Office of Science (still a core funding agency) but since that beginning point support has been provided by the National Science Foundation (with grants from the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences division, the Education Directorate and the International Division), the National Institutes of Health (NICHD), and foundations support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation. The RVM Program is now based out of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) at Arizona State University.  

The chief areas of research for the RVM Program include:

• Innovation, Management and Performance in University-based Science and Technology Centers
   

• Research Impacts Evaluation
   

• Social Equity and Distributional Impacts of Science and Technology
   

• Dynamics of Scientific Collaboration
   

• Assessing Scientific and Technical Human Capital
   

• Technology Transfer studies
   

• Government Laboratories Structure and Performance
   

• Assessment of Information Technology Infrastructure
   

• Internet Policy (in cooperation with the Georgia Tech's Internet and Public Policy Project http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/)

A particular objective of the RVM Program is to advance the state-of-the-art in research evaluation and to provide training to doctoral students and postdoctoral students in these new methods of research evaluation.  Among the many approaches it has developed is the "research value mapping" method, an approach that conceptually addresses the all the ways in which scientific and technical activities create (or destroy) value and, methodologically, involves the blending of qualitative and quantitative approaches to assessing research impacts.

The RVM Program cooperates with researchers and officials in a number of nations including France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Korea, China, New Zealand, and Argentina.