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Plant genetic resources are essential components to meet future food security needs of world. Crop germplasm diversitycontributes to developing improved crop cultivars aimed at increasing crop productivity. The large size of germplasmcollections, coupled with unavailability of detailed data and information, has resulted in low use (<1%) of germplasmleading to a narrow genetic base in many crops. The miniaturization of crop collections with almost full representation ofgenetic diversity in the form of mini core (~1% of the entire collection) approach is an effective methodology to enrichand enhance crop improvement programs. The concept and process of developing mini core at The International CropsResearch Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has been recognized worldwide as an “International PublicGood” (IPG). The mini core provides a means for accessing the larger collections for further exploration and also helps inproper assessment of genetic diversity and population structure and for association mapping and targeted gene mining.Use of mini core approach will lead to greater utilization of diverse germplasm for developing broad-based cultivars,especially in the context of climate change. Many national programs have shown immense interest in evaluating minicore as reflected by the supply of 114 sets of mini core of chickpea, groundnut, pigeonpea, sorghum, pearl millet, foxtailmillet and finger millet to researchers in 14 countries. Scientists have been able to identify new and diverse sources ofvariation for morpho-agronomic, quality, biotic, and abiotic stress resistance traits in various crops. The molecularcharacterization of the mini core will further enhance its use in plant breeding programs.