SEPIA (Sample Essentials, Persistent Identifiers & Attributes) is a FAIR-compliant sample metadata platform designed for ICAT-based research infrastructures. It enables centralized registration, persistent identification, and full provenance tracking of scientific samples across their lifecycle. SEPIA mints IGSNs via DataCite, provides dedicated landing pages, and supports a core citation metadata schema with extensible sample-type specific attributes. Through a REST API (OpenAPI) and web interface, it integrates seamlessly into laboratory workflows. Developed as a separate service tightly integrated with ICAT, SEPIA manages full FAIR sample metadata while ICAT retains responsibility for proposals, investigations, and datasets. SEPIA is currently under development at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) with contributions from the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC), in cooperation with DAPHNE4NFDI and the ROCK-IT project.
Sedeqi et al. (2026) studied this question.