Abstract: The National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS) was established by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 2004 as its key contribution to the UK e-Science programme. In this paper, we review the progress of the NCeSS programme towards its objectives and outline various initiatives which the programme has undertaken in order to pursue its goals. This provides the background for a discussion of how our understanding of e-Social Science - and with it how the research 'roadmap' - has evolved in the four years of the programme's existence. We conclude by reflecting on experiences of doing the 'translational' work that needs to be tackled for the NCeSS programme to be a success.