This invited presentation, given to the BioImaging North America (BINA) 2025 Community Congress in Montreal, QC, Canada on October 9, 2025, highlights the critical role of generalist repositories in increasing the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research by accepting data regardless of type or format. To facilitate this, the NIH launched the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI) to implement consistent metadata models based on DataCite. This collaborative effort ensures NIH-funded data is discoverable, interoperable, and reusable, streamlining compliance with NIH policies and fostering greater cross-repository collaboration.