The INGV data registry as a curated metadata infrastructure for Earth Science data stewardship.

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Italy's primary institution for geophysics and volcanology, produces vast, heterogeneous geophysical and volcanological datasets. To enhance these assets under Open Science mandates, we implemented the INGV Data Registry: a centralized, curated metadata infrastructure. This metadata-only system is designed to decouple data description from physical storage, providing a scalable solution for distributed data environments. The Registry operates as a dynamic ecosystem that manages hundreds of records, each assigned to a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and mapped to international standards. This article examines the implementation and impact of the Registry as a critical infrastructure that supports the FAIR data principles. We demonstrate how a three-tiered validation workflow, combined with the integration of Persistent Identifiers (ORCIDs, RORs), ensures high-quality, interoperable metadata. By providing a single discovery point for INGV's distributed data assets, the Registry offers a model for data stewardship in large research organizations, accelerating scientific discovery and decoupling data availability from traditional publication cycles. The underlying metadata dataset is publicly available and formally citable.