Brief introduction… …of the Beilstein-Institut and STRENDA, the project that is concerned with the improvement of the quality of functional enzyme data in the literature. Carsten Kettner explains the background of this project and invites authors who are preparing a manuscript that contains functional enzymology data to learn more on how to ensure that their data sets are complete and valid before they are submitted as part of a publication to a journal. The STRENDA Commission has established standards for data reporting in enzymology research. The aim of these STRENDA Guidelines is to improve the quality of data published in the scientific literature and to enable researchers to compare, evaluate, interpret and reproduce experimental research results published in the literature and databases. STRENDA supports authors by providing STRENDA DB – a web-based database whose data submission form automatically checks the manuscript data prior or during the publication process on compliance with the STRENDA Guidelines.