Virtual Research Environment IG (VRE-IG)

VREs are synonymous with Science Gateways (SGs) in the USA and Virtual Laboratories (VLs) in Australia, and are increasingly being used to support a more dynamic approach to collaborative working across the internet. The proposed VRE-IG will explore all aspects of existing and planned future VRE/SG/VLs with the aim of moving towards common policies and best practices, such as those now being promoted by the European EOSC, the US XSEDE and the Australian NRDC. There is currently no coordination of the development of the underlying architectures, as well as specifications for components and interfaces in any of these initiatives, nor is there any agreed best practice way to connect to the major research infrastructures, in particular data to compute resources. Likewise there is also no mechanism for sharing best practice, skills, tools and software that connect tools to data in online environments that could ultimately allow these individual VREs to interoperate on a global scale. The goal is to create “building blocks” of common data infrastructures and building specific “data bridges” to enable online sharing and in situ processing of data. The US SGCI – started in August 2016 – starts to work on these challenges for the US and will closely collaborate with this IG.

The VRE IG will aim to act as a longer-term organization responsible for tracking and contributing to the evolution of VRE/SG/VL technologies, particularly as they relate to data access. It will also seek to engage with those seeking to make use of these online technologies in an effort to identify the necessary technical aspects, social and community building practices, required skills, as well as governance issues and best practice required to support a more coordinated approach to the development of the collaborative environments that enable data sharing and in situ online processing.

The proposed VRE-IGgroup is in effect, an ‘umbrella group’ would bring together:

1. Those initiatives that are actively developing VRE/SGs/VLs internationally;

2. Representatives of the common e Infrastructure (eIs) services e.g.,  European Data Infrastructure (EUDAT); European Open Science Cloud (EOSC); US XSEDE; and the Australian National Research Data Cloud (NRDC); and

3. Specific RDA groups (e.g., software citation, metadata IG, Versioning IG, etc.) that are developing outputs that themselves are best practice inputs to groups developing VREs.

Past Plenaries:

• 20th Plenary FAIR4VRE WG  Gothenburg: https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-20th-plenary-meeting-gothenburg-hybrid/draft-recommendations-making-vres-fair-and-fair
• 18th Plenary IG virtual: https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-18th-plenary-meeting-virtual/vresvirtual-labsscience-gateways-fairness-sufficient-2
• 17th Plenary IG virtual: https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-17th-plenary-meeting-edinburgh-virtual/vresvirtual-labsscience-gateways-visions
• 16th Plenary IG virtual: https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-16th-plenary-meeting-costa-rica-virtual/vresvirtual-labsscience-gateways-good
• 15th Plenary IG virtual: https://www.rd-alliance.org/towards-common-reference-architecture-vres
• 14th Plenary IG Helsinki: https://www.rd-alliance.org/virtual-research-environments-working-towards-building-common-reference-model-and-catalogue-design
• 13th Plenary IG Philadelphia: https://rd-alliance.org/ig-virtual-research-environment-vre-ig-rda-13th-plenary-meeting
• 12th Plenary IG Gaborone: https://rd-alliance.org/ig-observational-data-information-ig-vre-joint-meeting-rda-12th-plenary-meeting
• 11th Plenary IG Berlin: Virtual Research Environments – How do I find them and what skills do I need to build and use them?
• 10th Plenary IG Montreal: Understanding VREs/SGs/VLs: planning a roadmap for sustainable collaborative development
• 9th Plenary IG Barcelona: Virtual Research Environments: coordinating sustainable online research environments across multiple infrastructures
• 8th Plenary IG Denver: VREs/Virtual laboratories/science gateways: opportunities for developing a more coordinated approach to support interoperability across different systems
• 7th Plenary BoF Tokyo: Kick-Off Meeting to establish the Virtual Research Environment Interest Group