A Reference Architecture for Virtual Research Environments

This paper describes the Reference Architecture of the enhanced VRE (e-VRE), a Virtual Research Environment defined in the context of the VRE4EIC Project, funded by EU H2020 e-Infrastructure program. e-VRE is designed to overcome limits of existing VREs with respect to a number of orthogonal dimensions: improving the quality of VRE user experience by providing user centered, secure, privacy compliant, sustainable environments for accessing data, composing workflows and tracking data publications; increasing VRE usage in multidisciplinary research domains by abstracting and reusing building blocks and workflows from existing VRE initiatives; improving the interoperability of heterogeneous discovery, contextual and detailed metadata across all layers of the VRE.