AARC-TREE Project Kicked Off

Over the next two years, the AARC TREE project will facilitate the revision and enhancement of the AARC blueprint architecture to support a broader spectrum of scientific collaboration use cases and address emerging technical and policy challenges.

Funded by the EU, the two-year AARC TREE (Technical Revision and Enhance AARC Effectiveness) project is the third of its kind. The two previous projects in 2015-2016 and 2017-2019 resulted in the AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA) is a set of accompanying guidelines and the establishment of the AEGIS group. The AARC BPA is a set of software building blocks that can be used to implement federated access management solutions for international research collaborations.

AARC TREE will maintain the strength of the brand, provide funding for additional work, and enable the growth of the AARC community.

“AARC TREE  continues to provide an open forum for everyone interested in policy and technical aspects. It will ensure that researchers can securely access the resources they need for their work via robust, federated, and interoperable authentication and authorization identity services,” says Licia Florio, who was pleased to see 45 participants at the kick-off meeting in March, extending her gratitude to the core team members who have continued to contribute to the development of AARC both in periods with and without funding from EU.
Also, she was able to welcome new project participants and members of the AARC community, including a delegation from Australian research infrastructures.

Expected results of the AARC TREE project include a revamped website, a compendium of Authentication and Authorisation best practices across the eScience collaborations, an updated interoperability framework, and recommendations for a common long-term strategy for Authentication and Authorisation services for the eScience community in Europe and beyond.  
“The palpable enthusiasm of the attendees set the stage for a promising collaboration,” says AARC project coordinator Licia Florio, NORDUnet.

In addition to the AARC BPA enhancement, AARC TREE will collect research infrastructure requirements and use cases to produce a landscape analysis of AAI services (and gaps). A consultation with the Research Infrastructures in AARC TREE and beyond is planned for the start of 2025. At the end of its lifetime,  AARC TREE will deliver recommendations for a common long-term strategy for AAI services for the European Research Infrastructures.

 AARC TREE project started in March 2024 and will run for two years. 
The project is structured in eight work packages that address the technical work, policy work, research infrastructure use-case and analysis, the delivery of a compendium of AAI best practices and Recommendations, management and communication and exploitation. The adoption of the technical and policy results is facilitated by a validation work package.  

In the project, the EGI Foundation leads the activities on Communication Dissemination and Exploitation Management. It significantly contributes to the technical guidance and architecture definition, trust policy harmonisation and interoperability, validation activities, and the preparation of the Compendium and recommendations. Participation in the project will help EGI offer cutting-edge AAI services, therefore maintaining the EGI Check-in up to date with the major technological developments in the AAI field.

The AARC TREE kick-off meeting was held in Utrecht, March 11-13, 2024, at the premises of SURF, the NREN of The Netherlands.