Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI) to support NIH data sharing and discovery

In February 2022, the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy launched the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), which brings together seven generalist repositories (GRs) (Dataverse, Dryad, Figshare, Mendeley Data, Open Science Framework, Vivli, and Zenodo) to enhance support for NIH data sharing and discovery in generalist repositories. This program recognizes that generalist repositories play a key role in the NIH data sharing landscape to support the FAIR sharing of data and other research outputs in a trusted repository when they cannot be deposited in a discipline-specific repository. Together the GREI repositories are working to enhance common metadata, persistent identifiers, and metrics to support cross repository search and tracking. GREI also seeks to provide training and outreach on data sharing best practices and gather community feedback on the needs of researchers, librarians, and others to inform future work.    

There is consensus across the biomedical research community: research data matters. In 2023, the NIH implemented a new data management and sharing policy aiming to make research data publicly available. In 2022, the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy launched the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), which brings together seven generalist repositories to enhance support for NIH data sharing and discovery. This program recognizes that generalist repositories play a key role in the NIH data sharing landscape to support the FAIR sharing of data in a trusted repository when a discipline-specific repository is not available. The GREI program has a mission to “establish a common set of cohesive and consistent capabilities, services, metrics, and social infrastructure across various generalist repositories”.

A key component of GREI is “coopetition” (cooperation + competition), a term used to describe the collaboration among the generalist repositories to advance repository functionality. The GREI’s work is focused around a number of objectives including: Desirable Characteristics of data repositories, consistent metadata, search and browse, analytics and reporting, use cases, connecting digital objects, data QA/QC, and training and community engagement. While focused on NIH-funded data, GREI is a global collaboration that seeks to leverage existing and emerging community standards, partner with other initiatives in the research data community, and inspire greater interoperability across the data repository landscape beyond generalist repositories. 

The GREI repositories have collaborated on a catalog of generalist repository use cases, published a common metadata schema built on DataCite metadata fields along with recommended controlled vocabularies, determined common metrics for reporting on data use, and conducted training and outreach events for research communities and other stakeholders at NIH and academic institutions, including the library community. Future GREI collaborative work will be influenced by community feedback and partnership with audiences, such as MLA librarians, to better support the data sharing needs of our research communities. 

In the first two years of GREI, the coopetition has focused on objectives that reduce the barriers to FAIR data sharing and discovery of data within and across repositories. We hope to work with the NIH community including discipline-specific repositories, research communities, and academic librarians to continue this work in the future. A consistent feedback mechanism is being implemented for the project to ensure that the work of GREI meets the needs of NIH grantees as well as data managers and others who are providing vital support. Through repository enhancements, common functionality, training and outreach, GREI hopes to continue to support a key part of the NIH data sharing landscape as data sharing practices evolve.