STORK 2.0, the pan-European Project fostering citizens’ and business mobility in Europe through cross-border authentication and identification (eID) allows citizens to identify themselves across-borders by using identity-related data from authentic and reliable sources (attribute providers) or to represent other natural or legal persons, in the context of different business domains.
STORK 2.0 has accomplished major achievements:
- A set of open common specifications agreed by the STORK 2.0 Member States for the STORK 2.0 cross-border interoperability eID platform.
- Commercial packages (open sources) available in Joinup for Member States, Service Providers and Attribute Providers with manuals, guidelines and common code (based on the common specifications) for the connection to the STORK 2.0 infrastructure.
- A new attribute quality authentication assurance (AQAA) framework, that allows a quality rating of 1 to 4 to be allocated to attribute information (comparable to the QAA framework developed in STORK 1 for eIDs). This framework can be generically applied to any type of attribute, including mandate information stored in business registers.
- A Memorandum of Understanding that is an agreement between the operators of the national infrastructures in STORK 2.0, and served as an anchor for all legal and trust issues in the project. The Memorandum was aligned with the approach of the eIDAS Regulation to facilitate sustainability, and addressed key topics such as data protection, quality control, maintenance of STORK nodes, security, and general allocation of responsibilities between all STORK 2.0 participants.
- Four pioneering cross-border pilots which validate at multiple levels of interoperability (legal, technical, semantic, organizational) the STORK 2.0 infrastructure in real life conditions, which improve efficiency and effectiveness of involved chain of organizations and which support future developments in CEF Building Blocks and Digital Service Infrastructures
The project involved 55 organizations, both public and private, across 19 European countries. The project also collaborated with ISA, CEF and the eIDAS Task Force to define the building blocks, standards and governance applicable to cross-border eID interoperability as defined in the eIDAS Regulation, and for a compliant but divergent STORK 2.0 community.
The 58 organisations from the private and public sector (universities, industry, public administrations) worked together during the 3 years and a half of the project. There were not different stages of collaboration.
The communication and cooperation tools that STORK 2.0 project used during its lifetime are the following.
TOUCHPOINT 1 - EMAIL AND TELEPHONE
The consortium used email for the regular request or provision of information, which was not time critical. For this purpose, a general mailing list was created as well as specific mailing lists for each of the work packages ensuring that if needed all project participants are reached. Direct emails were also be used for bilateral communications. Furthermore, direct telephone calls will be used in case of time critical matters.
TOUCHPOINT 2 - FACE2FACE MEETINGS
Face-to-face meetings were held to tackle discussions on important issues that require the participation and opinion of all partners. This was also an opportunity for partners to meet each other and solve small questions, doubts and requests that do not concern the project as a whole.
TOUCHPOINT 3 - TELECONFERENCES
As an alternative to face-to-face meetings, the consortium made use of a teleconference platform (e.g., Lync or Skype). That allowed regular web interface integrated teleconference facilities with the possibility to share presentations and other files
TOUCHPOINT 4 - WEB SITE
A useful resource for storing information on work in progress and project information.
The collaboration between the different organizations was good, despite the large number of partners mainly because most of them have worked together in the previous STORK project and the strength was in personal relationships of trust between people that already existed.
The project management was also essential to turn members into a team, rather than a group of individuals. Securing shared agreement was better than trying to impose objectives on the team and ensures commitment to success. In large teams like STORK 2.0, it was also important for each member to understand their role and responsibility.
One of the major barriers to effective collaboration was the conflicting needs and priorities of the different organizations and countries. Each organization had targets to meet. Universities focus on creating new knowledge and improving existing know-how, industry concentrates on getting new business and public sector focuses on delivering better public services. Thus, it was necessary to convince the different organizations of the importance and benefits of the team project and persuade them to cooperate.
- The benefits of the collaboration between the different organizations should be clear. It is a win-win situation for the different parties. For instance, companies can access to the latest research results while they can offer business insights to the universities.
- Leadership should be trusted by the partners.
- Roles and responsibilities of who does what should be clearly defined since the beginning of the project.
- Accept the differences in culture and the way of working that exist among different organizations.
- Common goals should be shared by all the partners.
- Meet regularly to encourage strong communications.
- Do not underestimate communication and openness: Effective communication sharing and accessing information needs to exist.
