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Encouraging and enabling staff to register IGSNs for samples and subsamples—and to record parent-child relationships between them—ensures that the full provenance of physical materials is documented and traceable throughout the research lifecycle. This practice supports transparency, accountability, and reproducibility, particularly in collaborative and longitudinal research where samples may be reused, shared, or reanalyzed over time. By linking subsamples to their parent IGSNs, organizations maintain the integrity of sample lineages, allowing researchers to reconstruct sampling histories, assess data quality, and correctly attribute results. This ultimately enhances the scientific value and trustworthiness of sample-based research.

It is recommended, that sample curators:

1. Enable, train and encourage staff, including researchers, technicians, and other people who take samples, split samples or create subsamples to register IGSN to be able to identify these samples where appropriate.
2. Enable, train and encourage staff, including researchers, technicians, and other people who split samples or create other types of subsamples to record any parent IGSNs with these subsamples.

To answer - Who exactly are sample curators? Where to do this?

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