The Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre (VAMDC, http://www.vamdc.eu) is a European Union funded collaboration between groups involved in the generation, evaluation, and use of atomic and molecular data. VAMDC aims to build a secure, documented, flexible and interoperable e-science environment-based interface to existing atomic and molecular data. The project will cover establishing the core consortium, the development and deployment of the infrastructure and the development of interfaces to the existing atomic and molecular databases. It will also provide a forum for training potential users and dissemination of expertise worldwide. This review describes the scope of the VAMDC project; it provides a survey of the atomic and molecular data sets that will be included plus a discussion of how they will be integrated. Some applications of these data are also discussed.