Federation Connected Services
Federation Connected Services

For Service Providers

Putting your service within reach

Open your service to Australia’s higher education and research community.

By joining the Australian Access Federation, you give eligible users from participating universities and research organisations a simpler way in, with the trusted institutional identity they already have.

No extra logins, registration forms or passwords standing between them and your service.

 secure logins every year  people connected  Australian universities  % network availability

AAF puts your organisation inside one of Australia’s most trusted and widely used identity networks.

The same infrastructure supports every individual member, and it’s working at scale every day.

Benefits at a glance

Joining the Federation helps customers find you, sign up, and stay secure. Here's where it makes the biggest difference.

  • Access to the whole sector

    Join the Federation once, and your service becomes reachable to users right across Australia’s universities, research organisations and NCRIS-funded facilities.  

    Through international trust frameworks like eduGAIN, you can expand into research and education communities worldwide. 

  • Faster approvals

    Federation participation removes one of the most common blockers in procurement and security reviews. Membership signals to IT and security teams that your service already meets sector standards for identity and access. 

  • Integrate once. Not once per customer

    Rather than building a separate identity integration for every institution, connect once and serve them all. As your customer base grows, the Federation model scales with it (without the rise in admin efforts and cost). 

  • Less admin & fewer support tickets

    Users sign in with credentials they already trust, so onboarding is faster and support tickets drop. No more managing password resets or account requests for every customer. 

  • Stronger security

    Every user is authenticated by their own institution, using controls like MFA and lifecycle management you don’t have to build yourself. You can access the trusted attributes (role, affiliation, entitlement) you need for accurate access control and compliance. 

  • Built for what's next

    Federated identity is becoming an industry standard for many areas – from sharing digital credentials, to trusted research environments, secure data sharing, and AI-enabled services. 

    With Federation, you’re preparing yourself and your service for future sector requirements.  

Built to protect both sides

Federated access isn't just about making it easier for the right people to reach your service. It ensures they’re the only people who can access it. 

Because every user is authenticated by their own institution (before they ever reach your service), you can trust who’s on the other side of the login without having to collect or verify that information yourself. 

AAF provides a two-way benefit: easier access for genuine users, and one less identity risk for you to manage. 

Federation is the trust framework behind every seamless login

Federated access isn't just about making it easier for the right people to reach your service. It ensures they’re the only people who can access it. 

When someone signs in with their own institutional credentials, Federation is what tells the service on the other end that they’re a verified member of a real organisation. No new password to create, no personal data changing hands, just one login that’s recognised everywhere across the network. 

Find out more about the technology and what makes it possible. 

The Federation

Interested in learning more?  

Get in touch to talk through what federated access could like for your business.

Contact Us

See the technology in action 

Explore our projects and see how AAF is working with the sector on what’s next. 

Explore Projects