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An identity federation (or just federation) is a collection of organizations that agree to interoperate under a certain rule set. This rule set typically consists of legal frameworks, policies and technical profiles and standards. It provides the necessary trust and security to exchange identity information to access services within the federation.

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• Identity Provider (IdP): The system component that authenticates a user (e.g. with username and passwords) and issues identity assertions on behalf of the user who wants to access a service protected by a Service Provider.
• Service Provider (SP): The system component that evaluates identity assertions from an Identity Provider and uses the information from the assertion for controlling access to protected services.
• Discovery Service(DS): The Discovery Service service, also known as "Where Are You From (WAYF)" service, lets the user choose his home institution from a list and then redirects the user to the login page of the selected institution for authentication.

National Identity Federations

As of 20172025, most western many countries operate one or more more identity federations for their higher education and research community. Most academic identity federations are operated within the borders of one single country. Their members are mostly education (e.g. universities) and research organisations (research facilities) within that country, as well as the services they operate. Most of them were established by the local national research and education network. Such federations are also called national federations. The first national federations were established around 2005.

A list of current national federations that joined eduGAIN can be found on the REFEDS web page and in greater detail the eduGAIN status page. A list of federations independent from eduGAIN participation can also be found on the REFEDS federations web page.

Other Types of Federations

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