In 2024, InCommon celebrated its 20th anniversary—two decades of shaping the trust infrastructure for research and education in the U.S. and beyond. But this milestone was far from a nostalgic glance in the rearview mirror. It became a springboard for bold new directions, collaborative momentum, and foundational work that will define the
next 20 years of identity and access management (IAM).
2024, InCommon celebrated its 20th anniversary—two decades of shaping the trust infrastructure for research and education in the U.S. and beyond. But this milestone was far from a nostalgic glance in the rearview mirror. It became a springboard for bold new directions, collaborative momentum, and foundational work that will define the next 20 years of identity and access management (IAM).
This past year was a study in balance: honoring our past, embracing change, and forging a smarter, more secure, more inclusive future. We’re excited to share our 2024 InCommon Year in Review—an opportunity to highlight the stories, data, and milestones that shaped a year defined by innovation, reflection, and strategic growth.
Looking for a high-level overview of the report? Keep reading for highlights.
A Letter from Leadership: Community is the Engine
InCommon’s leaders—Kevin Morooney, Ann West, and Steven Zoppi—put it succinctly: reflection is powerful, but community is the engine. While the organization reimagined its strategic goals through initiatives like Futures2 and refined its technical toolkits, the most consistent theme across 2024 was connection. Volunteers, partners, and institutions committed thousands of hours to co-creating solutions that serve research and education.
2024 At a Glance: A Year of Milestones
From launching new features to hosting community events, 2024 was packed with significant moments:
- January: Launched new multilateral federation guidance with Microsoft
- May: InCommon’s official 20th birthday celebration
- June: Hosted InCommon BaseCAMP with 201 attendees
- December: TechEX 2024 in Boston capped off a year of innovation with celebration
Across 12 months, InCommon led the IAM conversation through online webinars, collaboration success stories, and strategic partnerships that reached from universities to federal agencies.
Pillar 1: Tools That Power Trust
InCommon strengthened its suite of IAM solutions with major upgrades across core components:
- Shibboleth introduced native support for WebAuthn and passkeys.
- Grouper enabled dynamic, attribute-based group creation.
- COmanage released Registry v5.0.0 with a modernized UI and architecture.
- midPoint rolled out safer deployment options and improved interoperability.
The SAML MCM GUI tool (formerly Shibboleth IdP UI) expanded its documentation and adoption through community demos and university partnerships.
Meanwhile, the InCommon Certificate Service grew to 250,000 active certificates, offering security at scale for over 600 organizations.
Pillar 2: Strategy, Training & Support
The InCommon Academy expanded its reach in 2024:
- 1,162 IAM Online attendees across 10 webinars
- 201 BaseCAMP participants from 79 organizations
- 149 learners completed Trusted Access Platform trainings
The Academy also held multiple Collaboration Success Program meetups, growing a tight-knit community of IAM professionals who now co-create technical best practices.
Collaborations with NJEdge, IDEA, and others focused on scalable, cross-institutional IAM readiness—including support for course sharing and a refreshed IAM architecture visualization tool called Sketcher.
Pillar 3: Innovation Through Collaboration
This year, the Futures2 strategy came to life. Based on community feedback and evolving challenges, InCommon launched:
- A rebranding initiative and upcoming new website (Fall 2025)
- Exploratory work on next-gen credentials through CACTI and global partnerships
- A new Service Provider Readiness Testing tool for federal compliance integrations
eduroam also saw huge expansion. More than 3,400 service locations now exist across the U.S., with seven states officially designated as eduroam Support Organizations and two more in pilot stages.
Research & Federal Engagement
InCommon continued to support the NIH and NSF in implementing identity-proofing and MFA requirements. It also helped plan the FIM4R meeting at TechEX 2024 and completed a major migration for Federation Manager to 100% federated access.
With the shift to the MDQ metadata service by January 2025, InCommon’s infrastructure is now better aligned with international federation practices.
Governance and Community Leadership
Across advisory committees and working groups, the community showed up:
- 3,100+ volunteer hours logged
- 33 use cases documented for next-gen credentials
- 36 IAM deployment standards reviewed for federation readiness
Advisory committees and working groups tackled everything from SCIM integrations to trust frameworks and browser interoperability. Through joint meetings and open documentation, they ensured InCommon stays not just operational, but visionary.
The Catalyst Program: Turning Expertise into Action
Twelve Catalyst organizations contributed code, sponsored events, and shared expertise across the year. From publishing case studies to sponsoring TechEX24 and BaseCAMP, these catalysts supported higher education institutions, research organizations, and sponsored partners in meaningful and visible ways.
Notable 2024 contributions included:
- Open Access Workflow with Penn State (West Arete)
- Identity Matching with UPenn (Instrumental Identity)
- Technical integration guidance for Grouper, midPoint, and ERP systems
Looking Ahead to 2025 and Beyond
InCommon’s trajectory is clear: build smarter, scale faster, and serve better. With Futures2 as the guiding framework, expect 2025 to bring:
- A new brand and website
- A V1 launch of Sketcher at Internet2 Community Exchange 2025
- Rollout of the Service Provider Readiness Testing Tool
- Continued support for next-gen credential frameworks
If 2024 was the year of reflection, 2025 is poised to be the year of execution. The InCommon community is not only ready for what comes next—we’re building it.