The largest electronic collections of analytical data represent 1% or less of the known chemical structures. It is estimated that as many spectra are recorded in industrial and academic laboratories in a single day as are contained in the largest electronic analytical databases. Nearly all of these spectra are discarded or are unavailable, even to those who acquired them. The up-to-date numbers of chemical substance registrations has now passed 35 million.

Increasingly worrying gaps have become apparent in the coverage of known chemistry by reference spectroscopic databases. Access to large electronically stored collections of spectroscopic and substance data stimulates significant progress in chemical research and in automated methods for structure/spectrum and structure/biological-activity correlation. This has wide implications for human health, new materials, environmental protection, sustainable development and educational progress.

The EuroSpec project will establish the infrastructure necessary to make high quality reference spectroscopic database with links to available associated chemical knowledge. The network will coordinate electronic data submission from peer-reviewed scientific literature and make the data initially available to the publication reviewers and subsequently to the wider scientific community.