National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), alongside GÉANT and other partners such as e-infrastructures, play a crucial role in delivering secure, reliable and scalable identity services for research and education. They develop and deliver federated and inter-federated access solutions based on trusted digital identities, reliable policies and secure technologies. GÉANT supports them in a variety of ways.
Who benefits from GÉANT Trust & Identity activities?
GÉANT Trust & Identity activities benefit National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and other e-infrastructures, as well as the communities of research and education institutions, students, educators and researchers they serve, and the providers of connected online services and resources.
Thanks to T&I support, this whole range of different user groups can improve access and security of online resources or reduce the costs of managing users and services.
As a student, educator or member of staff in a research or education institution, being able to use integrated identity services is invaluable for simplifying and securing logins and personal data, while accessing valuable online resources.
Researchers increasingly work in international collaborative groups, which means they need secure access to services that are specific to their research community. But they may also need access to resources that are aligned with their institutional identity and permissions.
Many research and education institutions assign a digital identity to their students, researchers, educators and staff, so they can access online services and resources. The providers of these resources rely on the identity providers to confirm the authenticity of users and authorise access.