One step closer to connecting Australia’s researchers globally

eduGAIN

The Australian Access Federation (AAF) has recently completed a project funded by RDS (Research Data Services) that paves the way for Australian researchers to collaborate with international partners. The AAF is now connected to eduGAIN (Education Global Authentication Infrastructure) bringing Australian researchers one step closer to effortless international collaboration.

AAF and RDS have worked closely to deliver the eduGAIN service and have successfully piloted it with a subset of AAF subscribers. This phase of the project delivered the policy framework for the service, along with support materials and resources for a future national roll out.

eduGAIN helps deliver on the government’s agenda for the internationalisation of research. It will enable researchers, educators and students to collaborate with their colleagues and securely access applications, tools and datasets in other countries.

The project has delivered connections to more than 40 international identity federations and over 160 extra research services from organisations such as CERN and LIGO. eduGAIN connectivity will:

• simplify connecting national research infrastructure with international researchers
• enable Australian researchers to more easily access key research tools and services that are based overseas
• simplify collaboration between Australian researchers and their international colleagues.

This international connectivity is also an important enabler for several tools which are under development as part of the joint (RDS, ANDS, NECTAR, AARNet) Research Data Lifecycle Framework project.

This project represents a significant step forward towards international connectivity, but there is still more work to be done to roll the service out nationally.

For more information

If international connectivity would be valuable for your organisation or service, find out how to connect to eduGAIN or contact [email protected].