In recent years, significant investments have been made by the European Commission and European member states to create a pan-European e-infrastructure supporting multiple research communities. As a result, a European e-infrastructure ecosystem is currently taking shape, with communication networks, distributed grids and HPC facilities providing European researchers from all fields with state-of-the-art instruments and services that support the deployment of new research facilities on a pan-European level. However, the accelerated proliferation of data – newly available from powerful new scientific instruments, simulations and digitization of library resources –, has created a new impetus for increasing efforts and investments in order to tackle the specific challenges of data management, and to ensure a coherent approach to research data access and preservation. EUDAT aims to address these challenges and exploit new opportunities using its vision of a Collaborative Data Infrastructure.