Leonardo Candela

1 Introduction Geospatial data and knowledge, volunteered or contributed by non-specialized citizens, represents a significant potential for the multiplication, diversification and accessibility of data sources used for research, resource management and public policy purposes, while involving several methodological and regulatory challenges mainly in terms of data reliability and quality (Brovelli et al., 2020).

Virtual research environments are systems called to serve the needs of their designated communities of practice. Every community of practice is a group of people dynamically aggregated by the willingness to collaborate to address a given research question. The virtual research environment provides its users with seamless access to the resources of interest (namely, data and services) no matter what and where they are.