Developing a Virtual Research Environment to support Integrative Biology
Partners: Oxford University and CCLRC
This 2-year Virtual Research Environment (VRE) project is funded under the Joint Information Systems Committee's Virtual Research Environments programme. It is using requirements defined by the Integrative Biology project to design and construct a prototype VRE to support computational biology. This challenging domain, which involves large-scale in silico simulation experiments carried out by a globally-distributed multi-disciplinary team of world experts in heart and cancer modelling, requires a comprehensive set of collaborative research and research management support tools and services. As such, it will provide an excellent test-bed for defining, developing and evaluating VRE middleware.
The principal deliverables from the project are:
- a robust integrated VRE demonstrator supporting the work of a major multi- and inter-disciplinary research consortium at the interface between the physical and the life sciences;
- detailed reports on the requirements, specification, design, and implementation stages of the development of a fully-functioning VRE to support this leading international research community; and
- detailed evaluation studies based on extensive user and developer experience of the use and extension of existing VRE middleware to support large-scale collaborative research.