The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new pan-European Research Infrastructure with the vision to place European natural science collections at the centre of data-intensive scientific excellence and innovation for taxonomic and environmental research, food security, health, and the bioeconomy. DiSSCo mobilises, links and delivers currently fragmented biodiversity and geodiversity information at a scale, form and precision required, tooling scientists to address major challenges of the Anthropocene. The new RI introduces a step change by massively improving the capacity of scientists to discover, access and analyse complex and previously disjoined information deriving from the study of the vast European natural science collections.