The system is used in production by the System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR), Geoscience Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Mineral Resources, Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), University of Bremen MARUM, German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), IFREMER Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer, Korea Institute of Geoscience & Mineral Resources (KIGAM), and University of Kiel.
IGSN is both a governance and technical system for assigning globally unique persistent identifiers to physical samples.
voted to change the name of the identifier to International Generic Sample Number (IGSN) and rename the organisation accordingly.
The IGSN unique identifier allows researchers to track the analytical history of a sample and build on previously collected data as new techniques are developed.
At a workshop hosted at the San Diego Supercomputer Center in 2011, a group of experts met to discuss how to transition the IGSN project into a sustainable infrastructure.
[3] In 2018, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory a grant for a project to modernise the IGSN business model and system architecture.
The partnership allows IGSN to leverage DataCite DOI registration services and to focus community efforts on advocacy and expanding the global samples ecosystem.
[2] IGSN and DataCite have a common purpose, and a close relationship in the future will provide mutual benefit to our shared vision of connecting research and identifying knowledge.
In a study published 2023 by Knowledge Exchange it is highlighted that IGSN IDs point to physical objects instead of intellectual property or outcomes (as DOIs mostly do) or their creators.
[5] An example of a publication using live IGSNs can be found here: Dere, A. L., T. S. White, R. H. April, B. Reynolds, T. E. Miller, E. P. Knapp, L. D. McKay, and S. L. Brantley (2013), Climate dependence of feldspar weathering in shale soils along a latitudinal gradient, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 122, 101–126, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2013.08.001.This paper contains several samples identified by IGSN.