To target the multidisciplinary, broad scale nature of empirical educational research in the Federal Republic of Germany, a networked research data infrastructure is required which brings together disparate services from different research data providers, delivering services to researchers in a usable, needs-oriented way. The Verbund Forschungsdaten Bildung (Educational Research Data Alliance, VFDB) therefore aims to cooperate with relevant actors from science, politics and research funding institutes to set up a powerful infrastructure for empirical educational research. This service is meant to adequately capture specific needs of the scientific communities and support empirical educational research in carrying out excellent research.