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On November 12 and 13, 2025, the biannual workshop of the state initiatives for federated identity management (IDM) took place at the IT Center of RWTH Aachen University. This year’s meeting was organized by the staff of the IDM.nrw project, which supports universities in North Rhine-Westphalia on their way to a state-wide, federated identity management system.

Representatives from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia, as well as from the German National Research and Education Network (DFN), came to Aachen to exchange experiences, discuss challenges, and initiate joint developments.

Cross-state Cooperation

The IDM.nrw project is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW NRW) under the umbrella of the Digital University NRW (DH.NRW). The aim is to enable university members in North Rhine-Westphalia to use external services with their own university account – an important step towards seamless digital collaboration.

bwIDM, funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg, pursues the same vision: uniform, secure, and cross-university authentication and authorization in the state. bwIDM creates the basis for state-wide services and strengthens the visibility and competitiveness of universities.

Both initiatives thus share a common goal: federated, state-wide identity management that connects universities and modernizes the IT landscape in the long term.

New Participants and Proven Cooperation

The workshop focused on introducing the new colleagues from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt, who will also be actively participating in the exchange of state initiatives in the future. This further expands the group and brings it closer to its long-term goal of linking identity management systems across federal states.

Another focus was on the further development of the bwIDM project. The initiative from Baden-Württemberg presented its current progress and planned steps, which were received with great interest by the participants. As with IDM.nrw, bwIDM also pursues the goal of state-wide, cross-university identity management – albeit with its own technical and organizational approaches. The openness within the group to these different approaches was particularly emphasized and valued as a valuable contribution to the overall process. The diversity of solutions strengthens joint development and shows that federated identity management can be successfully implemented in different ways.

Security as a Common Standard

Compliance with the Sirtfi framework (Security Incident Response Trust Framework for Federated Identity) was also discussed in detail. It forms an important basis for trustworthy federated identities, as it standardizes the handling of security-related incidents and facilitates exchange across federation boundaries.

Exchange, Expertise, and Good Cooperation

Once again, the workshop provided an excellent opportunity to share expertise across countries and learn from each other. The country initiatives meet regularly twice a year, at least once in person, to further strengthen cooperation. Personal exchanges – including a joint dinner – contribute significantly to maintaining networks and building trust across organizational boundaries.

Responsible for the content of this article are Tatiana Huppertz and Merrit Mielke.

Kategorie: Events, Anniversarys & Success, Insight IT Center, IT-Security, Projects & Cooperations
Schlagworte: bwIDM, dfn, DH.NRW, digital, IDM, IDM.nrw, MKW NRW, Nachbericht, Sirtfi, Workshop
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