May 2020: We are in this together

This is a strange time we all find ourselves in, and very different to how we imagined 2020 would unfold when we rang in the New Year. Here at AAF's virtual head office, we are working to ensure that everything is business as usual for all our subscribers.

AAF plays an important role in enabling access and connectivity for your organisation's research, and learning and teaching activities. During this challenging time, our priority is to help you support your researchers, staff and students.

Taking Australian research global

We are here to help your researchers connect to fight COVID-19. At a time when researchers and scientists are rapidly forming critical collaborations in response to COVID-19, it is vital that Australian researchers can access data, connect and participate in research projects as quickly and easily as possible.

AAF can help you gain access to global research services by connecting to eduGAIN. The AAF plays an important role in facilitating trusted electronic communications and collaboration between education and research institutions, both locally and internationally.
By connecting to eduGAIN, we offer our subscribers access to services from more than 68 federations around the world.
How can you help? The international science community has asked universities and research facilities to help make it easier for researchers, scientists and staff to join a collaboration project by:

• contacting your national identity federation – that's the AAF in Australia – to find out how you can enable the Research and Scholarship Entity Category for your organisation.
• adopting the Research and Scholarship Entity Category, this will help collaboration projects receive the information they need to onboard a new member.
• connect to eduGAIN to provide access to services and enable international collaboration.

How will eduGAIN benefit my users? eduGAIN is an international service which connects federations by:

• simplifying access to services by using a single username and password
• enabling sharing of research tools and secure collaboration
• connecting the global research and education community.

By contacting us at [email protected] we can assist you with adopting the entity category and connecting Identity Providers (IdP) and Service Providers (SP) to eduGAIN.

For more information visit:

• asserting Research and Scholarship Entity Category
• Resources to connect to eduGAIN.

Please reach out to us if you have any access, connection or collaboration questions.