VRE & DRE

VRE & DRE

Definitions/differences

The historical context is described in the section below.

In short: VRE  was defined in a GRTID2020 EU Project and the definition of VRE insufficiently described what was/is needed for the challenges/needs of Radboudumc. Radboudumc defined and used the term DRE to describe what was/is needed for them - which were/are not that different from many Medical University Hospitals, Universities, etc. The key differences are:

Differences in the concept definition

VRE (Virtual Research Environment)
DRE (Digital Research Environment)
Defined in Jisc
Defined in a 2015 as prerequisite for a European Tender by Radboudumc
A VRE helps researchers from all disciplines to work collaboratively by managing the increasingly complex range of tasks involved in carrying out research.
Innovative, cloud-based, research ecosystem driven, flexible, and secure working environments to do research and meeting the needs, requirements, and responsibilities of all stakeholders
Key characteristics based on examples given
  1. Tooling and data model prescriptive/standardization
  2. Integrated
  3. Driven by community needs
  4. Building sustainable communities of practice
  5. Spreading VREs virally by building an inclusive community
Key characteristics based on implementation:
  1. Tooling and data (model) agnostic
  2. Loosely coupled
  3. Driven by care of duty and unburdening (organization and users)
  4. Enabling temporary or long-term communities
  5. Providing an as-a-Service based on sustainable business model

The DRE is a concept, DRE is not a product nor a service. Users tend to use the word 'DRE' to refer to the product 'myDRE' (or 'RSRCH Platform' in the past).

Product definitions

myDRE:
A solution enabling organizations to create and manage Workspaces to safely work on data with own tooling, the compute, storage and the infrastructure needed, in collaboration; including with people external to your organization.


Historical context

2011 - Concept VRE [Virtual Reality Environments] was born

A paper on VREs [Virtual Reality Environments] was published in 2011, in the context of the GRDI2020 EU Project. 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 "A VRE helps researchers from all disciplines to work collaboratively by managing the increasingly complex range of tasks involved in carrying out research." ( source).

2013 - Organizational Care of Duty as emerging requirement

On 2013-08-28 the NFU published a presentation called "Surfing on the data wave - research data infrastructure for biomedical research"
Summary
  1. The UMCs are not yet sufficiently able to cope with the explosive growth of genomic and phenomic research data from plants and micro-organisms, animals and humans. Collecting, storing, processing, sharing and archiving and complying with the relevant regulations with regard to privacy protection and patient safety in human research requires clear policies and a high-quality research data infrastructure. There is no joint long-term vision on data infrastructure.
  2. The required research data infrastructure includes not only technical facilities (hard- and software), but also quality assurance systems and specific expertise among the researchers and the managers of this infrastructure.
  3. Data from healthcare processes are increasingly being used for research. The coordination between research and care in the field of data collection and processing around the patient must and can be improved.
  4. Funders are increasingly making demands on researchers with regard to data management. The policy for this transcends the individual researcher.
  5. Various national and international research data infrastructures are being developed or already available to UMC researchers, but these are funded, managed and controlled by parties other than the UMCs and the funding of these facilities is finite.
  6. At the same time, a lot of research in the UMCs still uses isolated solutions.
  7. If the Netherlands wants to remain on the front line of research, it is necessary that the eight UMCs work on a high-quality research data infrastructure, in close coordination with existing initiatives in this area.
  8. This research data infrastructure extends beyond the boundaries of the individual UMCs, which is why it is necessary for them to conduct joint management.
Source: NFU "Surfen op de data golf - onderzoeksdatainfrastructuur voor biomedisch onderzoek", above excerpt is Google translated


On 2013-11-25 the Board of Directors of Radboud University wrote in the preamble of the "University policy storage and management of research data":
Research data generated at Radboud University is stored, managed and made accessible in accordance with legal, scientific and ethical requirements and the requirements of subsidy providers. University policy is aligned with national and European developments with regard to data storage and management.

Source: Universitair beleid opslag en management onderzoeksdata, above excerpt is Google translated


2014 - Concept DRE [Digital Research Environment] was born

In 2014 the newly appointed CSIO of Radboudumc was tasked to come up with a solution for researchers in line with the Board of Directors policy. During the exploration phase to really understand what researchers and their stakeholders needed, it became clear that  next to needs described in the VRE definition, the organization's care of duty (needs, requirements, and responsibilities) became a if not the driving force. 

In the past 5 years the basic needs of researchers did not change that much, what dramatically changed was the care of duty of the organization. In the exploration phase it became clear that the three main drivers related to the care of duty of an Radboudumc were:
  1. GDPR
  2. Cyber security
  3. Cost control
The DRE as a concept was born and was defined as: 
Digital Research Environment (DRE):
“innovative, cloud-based*, research ecosystem driven, flexible, and secure working environments to do research and meeting the needs, requirements, and responsibilities of all stakeholders”.


2015 - RSRCH Platform 

The collaboration under the name RSRCH won the European Tender for the DRE issued by Radboudumc. Based on Aridhia framework and Vancis infrastructure the RSRCH Platform was built.


2017 - DRE definition by NFU

On 2017-01-01 in a collaboration between NFU Data4lifesciences WP2 & WP4, and SIG-PRIMA the document Reference Architecture Workspaces, corroborated by AcZie, 


2018 - Lessons-learned: Sustainability, scalability, and collaboration are key

The DRE, as a place to process the digital part of research, was in the NWO grant application: National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Infrastructure 2017-2018.
DRE, the Digital Research Environment, was developed at Radboudumc as a secure user-driven collaboration  platform bringing together data and tools for digital biomedical research projects. The DRE platform meanwhile supports a great variety of studies and is being piloted by all UMCs and several other research organizations.
.....
Radboud UMC DRE has demonstrated their potential to attract researchers as the infrastructure offers key  opportunities and assets relevant for academic and industrial researchers.

Source: NWO Elixir-NL Proposal-final.pdf

This, the evaluations of VRE/DRE solutions, and other l essons-learned in 2018 underlined the need for co-development of a DRE; created by, for, and with researchers and stakeholders to ensure a viable solution for the research ecosystem as a whole. 

RSRCH failed to deliver (not fulfilling the market vision, insufficient scalability, vision misalignment on predefined tooling and data models), they need tool and data agnostic solution) and Radboudumc decided not to renew the contract with RSRCH and to build its own DRE; the Azure DRE.


2019 - Emerging of anDREa Consortium, Azure DRE / myDRE

In 2019 Radboudumc, UMC Utrecht, and Erasmus MC joined forces. Starting with a letter of intent, followed by creating the anDREa Consortium to develop, maintain, and valorize the Azure DRE / myDRE. 


2020 - Viable business model requires anDREa to be a commercial entity

UMCs are not in the business to develop, maintain, and valorize a DRE. The anDREa Consortium because of its legal constructs is limiting growth. Growth that is needed to ensure a viable, affordable, sustainable, and continuously improving service beyond the typical 3-7 years. In the best interest of all, it was decided that anDREa had to become a BV. But fully owned by the three founding UMCs: Radboudumc, UMC Utrecht, and Erasmus MC to ensure the alignment of anDREa BV with the needs of the ecosystem of which they are part of as well. Among many decisions to ensure this, was the decision that also Radboudumc, UMC Utrecht, and Erasmus MC would, with respect to myDRE, be a normal client with no extra privileges.


2021 - anDREa BV is born

As of 2021-07 anDREa BV is a legal entity and open for business for any organization that needs a Digital Research Environment: being able to create within one hour and manage Workspaces to safely work on data with own tooling, the compute, storage and the infrastructure needed, in collaboration; including with people external to your organization. Each organization uses their own Microsoft Azure contract (conditions and pricing) for the Microsoft Azure resources used, all data is stored and processed in the organization's own Microsoft Azure subscription, the organization's own license servers can be used, local support teams are well supported and can collaborate even across organizations if so desired.





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