The DILIGENT project aims at supporting this new research operational mode by providing a knowledge infrastructure that manages a network of shared resources (e.g., archives, database, software tools) and enables the creation of on-demand digital libraries. By exploiting this infrastructure a virtual research group will be able to dynamically create a digital library that satisfies its needs by specifying a number of requirements on the information space and on the services. A reliable and secure digital library that satisfies the given requirements will be transparently instantiated and made accessible to authorised users through a portal. Many digital libraries, serving different virtual research groups, will be active on the same resources at the same time.

The DILIGENT infrastructure, which will build upon the efforts of the EGEE project (IST-2003-508833), will serve many different research and industrial applications and will be demonstrated and validated by two complementary real-life application scenarios.

Four main areas of work have been identified:

• integration of DL services and content together with third-party applications as Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA)-compliant Grid services;
• experimentation with real-life user communities;
• feedback with respect to the capabilities of the Grid and the design of DL system architectures;
• and exploitation and sustainability.