Workshop report from the IGSN 2040 Technical Steering Committee (TSC) meeting in Canberra, Australia, on May 13 and 14, 2019. IGSN 2040 is a project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to conduct a strategic planning effort for the IGSN e.V., the implementation organization of the Global Sample Number (IGSN), with the goal to “achieve a trustworthy, stable, and adaptable architecture for the IGSN as a persistent unique identifier for material samples, both technically and organizationally.” We thank the participants of the workshop for their essential contributions. For more information about the IGSN 2040 project, please visit: https://www.igsn.org/igsn-2040/