Technology roadmapping (TRM) has been applied successfully in a number of industrial organizations. Designed to facilitate and communicate technology strategy and planning, Roadmaps (or, as in Europe, route maps) can take a variety of specific forms, depending on the type (opportunities, capabilities, products, technologies, etc.) and particular company context. While they are generally manifest in a number of 'program elements or levels' superimposed upon a time-line, experienced roadmappers will often claim that it is “roadmapping” rather than “the roadmap” that generates the value. This paper primarily focuses on product and technology roadmaps and roadmapping. In the present and next issue of this journal a series of largely industry-developed papers will describe TRM, a technology management tool that is just now becoming widely used in the US and Europe, despite its approximately 25 years of history. In-company or corporate roadmapping (to distinguish from “Industry Roadmapping”) is becoming increasingly recognized as a powerful aid to achieve critically needed strategic focus, discipline and cross-unit integration of technology and product development programs as these move forward over time. The papers will describe how and why it is being used and with what results. For the most part, they derive from case experience developed through two industry-academic consortia, MATI (Management of Accelerated Technology Innovation, a US consortium with close links to Northwestern University) and the consortium affiliated with the Centre for Technology Management (CTM) at the University of Cambridge in the UK . In this introductory paper, we provide readers with a brief history of this technology roadmapping field as it has emerged on both sides of the Atlantic. We give an insight as to why and how certain major firms came to adopt and continue to use the approach, the range of applications and the new directions and developments in the field as practice advances. The essential link to Futures knowledge as part of a broader framework for Technology Management will also be discussed and Corporate Roadmapping will be placed in the larger spectrum of a domain that includes the related Industry Roadmapping field. Roadmapping, because it bridges between the conceptual and operations domains, also signals the need for and potential benefits to be gained from a healthy pattern of industry-academic cooperation. This pattern has become exemplified by the two US/UK consortia that are playing a leading role in the field’s development. This introductory section will also, therefore, briefly describe these consortia and how they have played this developmental role. The paper concludes with an overview of the four papers presented in this issue of Research and Technology Management and a preview of the five additional offerings that will appear in the issue to follow.