This is a state-of-the-art assessment for a small but burgeoning research approach, use of curricula vitae in research evaluation. The accumulated research remains sufficiently modest for us to consider nearly all published studies and the full range of research purposes to which CV analysis has been applied. CV analysis has been theory-driven, and theory and tools have increasingly converged. Advances in method and technique have been abetted especially by the push for a scientific and technical human capital theory to explain the role of capacity in research evaluation. We summarize the theoretical rationale for CV analysis, and present three major foci: career trajectories, mobility, and the mapping of collective capacity. We assess progress in solving methodological and practical problems and the future research possibilities and remaining needs in developing methods. We reflect on some new research topics that could benefit from CV analysis. We draw on the papers in this special issue of
Research Evaluation to illustrate research developments and to show the place of specific contributions in the developing CV literature.