Generating, processing, disseminating, and archiving scientific and scholarly knowledge is changing in a fundamental way. In the future, researchers from all over the world will be able to collaborate in virtual organizations based on Internet technology. Science enhanced by new digital working opportunities is described as e-science – “enhanced science”. Science, in this context, is understood not only to cover the natural sciences but also any other discipline like social sciences and the arts and humanities.The new dynamic forms of scientific and scholarly work require innovative infrastructures and services for communication, information, and publication.
 
Challenges for today’s information management are:

• Fast-growing amounts of information
• Integration of heterogeneous information sources within and outside of an organisation
• Manifold of object types and metadata formats
• Need to integrate information sources with existing and new applications

In Germany, the Alliance of German Science Organisations covers in its “Priority Initiative Digital Information” all relevant aspects of digital information in research and education.