Editorial commentary
A generalist repository accepts research outputs regardless of subject area or data type. It applies uniform, discipline-agnostic deposit rules — a persistent identifier (typically a DataCite DOI), basic descriptive metadata, and file-format flexibility — rather than the subject-specific metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, and curation workflows a domain repository builds around one data type. It is not a certification, a preservation guarantee, or a substitute for a domain repository when a suitable one exists — funders that mandate domain repositories where available (see below) do not treat generalist deposit as an equivalent alternative.
What counts as generalist
Widely used generalist repositories include Zenodo, figshare, Dryad, Harvard Dataverse, Mendeley Data, and the Open Science Framework (OSF). Seven of these — Dataverse, Dryad, Figshare, Mendeley Data, OSF, Vivli, and Zenodo — are the founding members of NIH’s Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), a coordination effort rather than a single NIH-endorsed repository.
When a generalist repository is acceptable
NIH’s own repository-selection guidance sets an explicit hierarchy, not a free choice: (1) an NIH-designated repository for the data type where one exists (e.g. GenBank, dbGaP), (2) another discipline-specific repository that meets NIH’s desirable characteristics (persistent identifier, sustainability plan, etc.) even if not NIH-designated, and only then (3) a generalist or institutional repository, and only if no discipline-specific option exists. NIH does not require or recommend any single generalist repository, GREI membership included. Most funder and journal data policies follow the same logic: use the domain repository the field already has; fall back to a generalist repository, including your institutional repository, when the output doesn’t fit an existing domain scheme.
Counter-example
A genome sequence deposited only in a generalist repository, when GenBank/SRA exists and is the field-standard destination, would not satisfy a typical genomics data-sharing requirement — the domain repository is expected, not optional, once one exists for the data type.
References
- NIH, ‘Selecting a Generalist Repository for NIH-Supported Research’ and ‘Selecting a Data Repository’ (sharing.nih.gov).
- See also: GREI: The NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative, trusted digital repository, CoreTrustSeal.
Also known as
General-purpose repository · Multidisciplinary repository
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Generalist repository"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalist-repository" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalist-repository",
"name": "Generalist repository",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalist-repository",
"description": "A generalist repository accepts research outputs regardless of subject area or data type, applying uniform, discipline-agnostic deposit rules — a persistent identifier (typically a DataCite DOI), basic descriptive metadata and file-format flexibility — rather than the subject-specific metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies and curation workflows a domain repository builds around one data type. Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad and OSF are instances. A generalist repository typically satisfies a funder's data-availability requirement only where no established domain repository exists for that data type.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/data-infrastructure#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalist-repository",
"sameAs": [
"General-purpose repository",
"Multidisciplinary repository"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:19:49",
"dateModified": "2026-08-23T23:55:22",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
