Attending the TNC conference is a unique experience. This year was built around the theme Digital Sisu. Inspired by the Finnish concept of sisu that can be explained as a combination of resilience, determination, courage, and perseverance – the theme encouraged participants to explore how the research and education community can continue to tackle complex technological challenges in an increasingly uncertain world.
What is TNC?
The Networking Conference (TNC) by GÉANT is the largest and most prestigious annual event for the global research and education community. The conference serves as a vital meeting point for over 900 experts, researchers, academics, and technology providers from more than 70 countries. While many technology events focus on products or vendors, TNC focuses on the essential infrastructure and trust frameworks that enable researchers, students, and institutions to collaborate across organizational and national boundaries. It starts with the activities of NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) building infrastructure and services within their respective countries, but it doesn’t end there. TNC stretches these activities to the pan-European level, truly enabling research collaboration without boundaries.
Trust and Identity at the heart of TNC26
This is especially interesting in the area of Trust and Identity, where it generates a new set of technical challenges that test the limits of current standards and push for new innovations.
When designing an identity solution for a single institution, you usually have a reliable source of truth, like an HR system, possibly combined with a student information system. Now, imagine building something similar for large-scale, cross-border collaboration. You have to figure out how to source identities, verify them, build trust, and much more. This is exactly what was at the center of focus this year.
3 key emerging trends from TNC26
1. Modernizing the OpenID Connect (OIDC) Federation
One of the most prominent topics that grabbed my attention was the OIDC federation, the technological successor to our current academic federations built on SAML 2.0. The goal here is to modernize the tech stack, allow for the use of new OIDC features, and solve several pain points inherent in current SAML-based systems. While this was discussed in the context of academic federations, which currently pilot these technologies on a “small” scale with several million users (yes, that’s how large the academic federation is!) – the results will surely be useful far beyond academia.
2. Getting Closer to Digital Identity Wallets
Digital identity wallets are a great example of innovation that can solve complex problems and simplify life for users. Heavily supported by the European Union, the vision is a unified identity layer compatible across the EU and eventually the world. By moving away from physical documents and fragmented logins, these wallets aim to bring not only convenience but increased security and privacy. Although standards are still being developed, experts are already running proof-of-concept experiments and using that experience to refine the technology. It’s inspiring to see how the lessons learned from building trust at the scale of academic federations are being applied to such a critical global project.
3. Advancing Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)
Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) was the topic that I brought to TNC26. In the world of research collaboration, the focus is naturally on enabling connection: gathering identities, authentication, and building trust. These are difficult problems to solve.
Nevertheless, I believe it is time to take the next step and put more focus on Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) within research collaborations. The reality of our current threat landscape makes this shift non-negotiable. According to the UK Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26, 98% of higher education institutions identified at least one cyber breach or attack during the previous 12 months.
While simple authentication acts as the front door, it does little to stop a bad actor once they bypass it. Phishing remains the primary vector, leading directly to compromised user accounts that attackers use to move laterally through massive academic networks. When an account is taken over, it doesn’t just disrupt a localized IT system; it compromises intellectual property and sensitive research data.
Beyond the immediate cyber threat, research and education institutions are facing growing regulatory and compliance needs. IGA can address these challenges and make life significantly easier. Specifically, IGA helps enforce the principle of least privilege, automate complex identity lifecycles, ensure access is removed when a researcher leaves a project, and provide the auditability increasingly required by regulators.
Looking Forward
The research and education community has already contributed significantly to the evolution of many identity advancements, from federation models to large-scale trust frameworks. However, I hope we will see a growing focus on Identity Governance and Administration adoption across the sector. Perhaps at a future TNC conference, we will hear about new approaches to decentralized identity governance that emerge directly from the unique challenges of research and education. Given the scale and complexity of these environments, the community is well positioned to help shape the next generation of identity governance.
If you’re interested in learning more about identity governance in academia, I encourage you to watch the presentations. If you’d like to catch my session, it begins at 27:12 (my pdf presentation is available here).
Slávek Licehammer
Head of Engineering at Evolveum
Slávek Licehammer is the Head of Engineering at Evolveum, the company behind midPoint, the leading open source Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) platform. With more than a decade of experience in identity management in higher education and public and private sectors, he helps organizations solve complex challenges in identity governance and security.
About Evolveum:
Evolveum is the EU-based company behind midPoint, the leading open source complete IGA suite recognized by Gartner and KuppingerCole. MidPoint gives organizations control, visibility, and efficiency to reduce identity risk, simplify compliance, and modernize identity operations.