Features usually include collaboration support (Web forums and wikis), document hosting, and some discipline-specific tools, such as data analysis, visualisation, or simulation management.
JISC funded development of a number of VREs under its "Virtual research environment programme" from 2004 to 2011.
[4][5] It surveyed the state of the art, proposed a 10-year vision, discussed current challenges and concluded with recommendations for the evolution of the research field.
The authors define VREs as "innovative, web-based, community-oriented, comprehensive, flexible, and secure working environments conceived to serve the needs of modern science".
[7][8] VRE software may be built on a CMS platform (such as HUBzero), from a learning management system (such as Sakai[9]) or through specific VRE frameworks that can be used as enabling technologies to develop and host different VREs (such as the gCube system or Microsoft Virtual Research Environment Toolkits[10]).