Microorganisms hold a high inherent value proved by the large number of applications in which they have been used. Public Culture Collections have the mandate to conserve microbial diversity and associated data and to make it available to the scientific community. Nevertheless, resources and information are currently fragmented and miss harmonized levels of quality rendering suboptimal exploitation of the available microbial diversity. MIRRI (www.mirri.org), Microbial Resources Research Infrastructure, is a pan-European distributed research infrastructure in its preparatory phase, which aims to support research and development in all fields of biotechnology (blue, green, red and white). Currently, more than 30 public culture collections and research institutes from 19 European countries collaborate to establish this infrastructure. MIRRI will coordinate offer and expertise and will provide a single entry point to resources, databases, training and expertise in the field of microbiology. MIRRI will also support users dealing with microbial resources in issues such as Biosecurity, Intellectual Property Rights, Access and Benefit Sharing, etc., facilitating legal compliance. Moreover, MIRRI aims to apply a holistic approach to data management, improving interoperability of data sets to facilitate generation of knowledge from data. Tailor-made solutions for biotech companies and participation in projects to sustain the bioeconomy will also be part of the MIRRI action plan.