Ever since the State started to influence the development of science and technology by means of public policies specific to the sector, it adopted procedures, devices, and evaluation criteria to distribute resources and affect activities, organisms, and specific disciplines. As from 1980, Latin American countries started implementing systems or programs to have some bearing on the work of scientists and achieve an increase in the production of knowledge through the distribution of material and symbolic resources. In 1994, Argentina started implementing a program aimed at promoting research work, particularly in all of its State universities. After twenty years of the creation of this program, this paper seeks to describe its evaluation system and to specifically analyze the transformations of its criteria, with the purpose of providing a summarized vision of the different moments and the direction of those changes.