The sharing of method-specific annotations is core to the purpose of our promoting the National Phenome Centre's open platform for metabolomics. These annotations, each linked to the well-established methods detailed here, represent a substantial investment in method characterisation that we hope will not require repeating by our colleagues in the field (beyond that prudent and necessary for any further validation of their accuracy). We feel strongly that biochemical annotations in metabolomics should not be considered as protectable intellectual property, but rather as public knowledge which can be used, updated, and expanded by a broader community of researchers. In this manner, the disclosure of global profiling methods and associated method-specific annotations is essential for facilitating this process, accelerating the unlocking of the real value held within global profiling, and democratising its development and utility across fields of application.