The study identified that a number of factors contribute to the efficient onboarding of users to access digital services and that an automated or automation-assisted document-based identity verification solution could be of benefit for the R&E community, particularly amongst certain segments of users, where the problem is most acute. This was confirmed through interviews with stakeholders, and although there was no strong pull for an immediate solution by many, some are already investigating or deploying solutions and many others expressed strong interest. Due to the early stage of this area the study was not able to determine the exact requirements of any solution or the potential deployment models, nevertheless it was able to collect valuable information and to make recommendations for subsequent steps. Although other identity-based initiatives such as eIDAS and European student card initiatives are underway the state of these initiatives indicates that there may still be utility in a document-based identify verification solution, at least in the short and medium term.

Our findings indicated a strong desire for information about the capabilities of the various document-based identity verification solutions, which would help in defining what the requirements and suitable deployment model for an R&E focused solution could be. In particular we concluded that further work would be needed to reach a definitive conclusion and recommended:

• Establishment of a platform for information capture and exchange on document-based identity verification solutions
• Comparative analysis of available commercial solutions should be performed and made available
• Surveying of the broader R&E community based on the findings so far to see the level of interest and support more generally
• Constructing a preliminary business case for a community-operated service following the broader survey

It is hoped that an interested party or parties can take this work forward, as further work on this topic is currently outside the scope of the Incubator.