Dear all,
I hope this email finds you all well.
I would like to share some updates on the TIIME event. Several of you were there, so you can correct/add anything as needed. There are notes for the unconference sessions here: https://surfdrive.surf.nl/s/HccGjF8BnWMfMc7
There were a lot of discussions on wallets (not a surprise), OIDC fed, zero knowledge, etc. A (possibly) new topic goes under the name AARC for education see below.
Some take aways:
(i) as you know by the end of 2026, all European Union Member States must provide a certified EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet to citizens, enabling secure storage of digital documents and ID. However the roll out of wallets in the education sector will take more than 1 year.
The nordics are working together on a wallet pilot.
(ii) When talking about wallets we also talk about OIDC Fed, as the trusted and scalable foundation that allows educational institutions to issue and verify digital credentials (like diplomas and student IDs) within wallets.
OIDC Fed 1.0 specs are out! A journey that lasted 10y! There is also a nice post on LinkedI: https://self-issued.info/?p=2813
(iii) As you know AARC community was established following the first cycles of EC funding in 2019; one of the main results was the AARC Blueprint architecture that defines patterns for research collaboration AAIs. To date the AARC BPA has become the community best practice for those that want to deploy an interoperable AAI for research collaboration globally (US, Australia, and EU research collaborations AAI follow the the AARC BPA). The BPA under AARC TREE project (which ends in a few days) has been evolved to support user centric technologies, such as wallets.
Comments on the AARC BPA 2025 are welcome - I’ll share the link in a few days.
(iv) The university alliances are gaining momentum (in addition to Erasmus+) and they are also getting some support from the EC. One of the things that are needed to support the alliances is a way to authN users and identify that they belong to an alliance. This is conceptually similar to the use-case of a researcher that wishes to access resources based on their role in a specific reattach collaboration, hence the idea of expanding AARC to support education as well.
One of the first things to do, is to create an inclusive group that brings together the NRENs as well as the alliances and other existing players and discuss how the NRENs can provide the necessary identity infrastructure to support the alliances.
There was discussion to organise a nordic meeting with the nordic alliances - what do you think? Does it make sense?
I think it would be good to have a call in the before Easter and sync, I’ll send a doodle to find a slot.
Best,
Licia
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Licia Florio - Senior Strategy and Policy Officer, NORDUnet
Phone: +31653928443
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