This paper aims at defining collaborative modelling and simulation (M&S) and at fining the research gap on collaborative M&S domain. In order to give an overview of the collaborative work in product development process, and more exactly the work done in modelling and simulation field, the research done for this paper is presented in six main sections. Section 1 and Section 2 present the context and the motivation. Section 3 introduces the methods used in this paper. Section 4 explains how collaborative M&S definition has been built. Section 5 describes how the research gap concerning our research has been highlighted. And Section 6 presents the conclusions and the future work. Based on the analysis of the state of the art and on the results of the industrial audit realized, this document concludes with a proposed definition of collaborative M&S regarding four main dimensions: shared object, stakeholders, process and IT. Future work will be focused on the study of the four dimensions suggested and it will be also dedicated to the implementation of more industrials audits and the creation of the systematic analysis of our collaborative system.