The networking of research environments will play a decisive role in the productivity and competitiveness of both individual researchers and geographically distributed and cross-disciplinary research groups. This Priority Area can and will be expanded in proportion to the successes seen in the other priority areas.

The goal is to design a research and development strategy to support scientists and scholars as they establish subject-specific and interdisciplinary networked digital research infrastructures known as virtual research environments. Initial efforts in this direction have been made at the Helmholtz Association with the Helmholtz Virtual Institutes and the Helmholtz Alliances, at the DFG with the funding programme Thematic Information Networks, and at the Max Planck Society and the Leibniz Association in their joint eSciDoc developments. These efforts are to be intensified and extended within the individual partner organisations. Based on the results obtained there, it will be decided at a later point in time how cooperation within the alliance can be intensified, for example, with a joint request for bids regarding the establishment of cross-institutional virtual research environments.