1. VRE-IG European View: Sustainability Keith G Jeffery

2. What is VRE sustainability?
Depends on how you define a VRE
Is it just a user interface with portal, peer cooperative communication, maybe research management assistance
Or that plus all the data, software, workflow, computing resources used by an individual or a community
If the former
Likely one organisation so sustainability can be planned
If the latter
Sustainability requires cooperation of many organisations / persons
In both cases need a business plan

3. In Europe Do we have any true VRE systems? Many portal systems
Which may be regarded as simple VREs
Tend to fall into two kinds:
Those with a long lifetime funded by an organisation that accepts responsibility and has funds to do it (e.g. world data centre sites)
Those with a short lifetime funded by a project for a particular purpose; e.g. a project to develop a VRE with an exemplar application domain

4. Possible Business Models
Funded by government long-term as a service
Access to OGD (Open Government Data)
Funded by publicly-funded research long-term
Access to outputs of large research infrastructures where provision of access is part of thelong-term funding for the RI e.g. EMBL/EGI
Funded by academic research community
Component of research grant taken to fund the community VRE or funding ‘taken off the top’ before grants awarded e.g. national RIs
Funded by industry
Direct subscriptions to access the results of publicly-funded research
May also include contributions of data, software etc. by industry
Set up as a business
e.g. like portals in hotel, airline industry. Publishing industry has an interest here.