Recent advances in networking and telecommunications technologies combined with the vast load of readily available scientific data, urge towards the implementation of software systems that are able to collect, combine and present information from distributed repositories. At the same time, scientists, researchers, academics and experts demand flexible infrastructures that provide just-in-time information, with reliable, peer-reviewed data, through ubiquitous interfaces. Towards this direction, several international organizations including the European Commission, promote the development of software platforms that will facilitate universal access to information aggregated from open access repositories. In this paper we discuss the requirements engineering process and the key functionality for a system that supports knowledge extraction and dissemination from distributed repositories, while at the same time enabling and integrating the social interaction of its users.