The first meeting of the group took place in Brussels in 1986. Over the first nine years, the group was supported by the International Institute of Administrative Sciences
 

Prof.Dr. Ray C. Rist, then of US General Accounting Office, took the lead in recruiting and above all encouraging a first group of mainly academics and government officials to further the cause of program and policy evaluation. The overarching aim of the group was to enhance the utilization of evaluation in the public sector by means of internationally comparative research on the theory and practice of policy evaluation, in relation to other instruments of internal and external public management.

In the first group, the founding fathers so to speak were: Dr. Ray C. Rist, Prof.dr. H.-U. Derlien, Germany, Prof.dr. R.V. Segsworth, Canada, Prof.dr. W. Jenkins and Prof. A. Gray, UK, Dr. E. Albaek and Dr. S. Winter, Denmark, B. Eriksen, Norway and Dr. G. Arvidson, Sweden plus the only founding mother Dr. M.L. Bemelmans-Videc.