From the website:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security chartered the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC™) in 2004 with the goal of helping to counter future terrorist attacks in the U.S. and around the globe. A major objective for NVAC is to define a five-year research and development agenda for visual analytics to address the most pressing needs in R&D to facilitate advanced analytical insight.

Under the leadership of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and top researchers on the R&D Agenda Panel, a Research and Development Agenda for visual analytics was developed to define the directions and priorities for future research and development programs focused on visual analytics tools. This R&D Agenda, Illuminating the Path, provides a coordinated technical vision for government and industrial investments, and ensures that a continued stream of technology and tools enter the hands of analysts and emergency responders.

The R&D Agenda presents recommendations to advance the state of the art in the major visual analytics research areas:

• The science of analytical reasoning
• Visual representations and interaction techniques
• Data representations and transformations
•  

Production, presentation, and dissemination.

The R&D Agenda also includes recommendations to accelerate the ability to move the most promising research into practice and set the stage for an enduring visual analytics research community through a combination of education and research collaboration.