Intensified Verification for Helmholtz Membership

Access to our Helmholtz Cloud Services is fundamentally restricted to users employed at a center belonging to the Helmholtz Association or the Head Office, as well as external collaboration partners invited by these employees into collaboration groups, e.g., so-called “Virtual Organizations”. All services are subject to the “Terms of Use”.

As of November 3, 2025, login access to our services will be adapted to reflect these rules. Services will no longer be accessible to individuals who are not directly employed at a Helmholtz Center or the Head Office, and are also no member of any collaboration group (e.g., VO). This is expected to primarily affect students and guests at Helmholtz Centers. We are contractually and legally obligated to implement this change.

Note that you as a full Helmholtz member can still share your projects and resources to externals for collaboration, as before.

Does this apply to me?

Nothing will change for you, if:

• You are normally employed at a Helmholtz Center or the Helmholtz Head Office,
• You have been invited to a collaboration group by a Helmholtz employee.

If you are, for example, a guest or student at a Helmholtz Center, there is a high likelihood that you will lose access unless you take further action.

Can I check my status in advance?

If you have any doubts, you can already verify your status by logging in to https://login.helmholtz.de/home/, scrolling to the bottom, and checking the entry under “Affiliation at home organisation”. You should see staff or employee listed there, combined with the domain of your Helmholtz center. For example: staff@desy.de. In this case you are not effected by the change. If these values are not listed, but others like student or only member, you are effected by the change.

Further, you can check if you are member of a collaboration group (VO) by scrolling up and look for “entitlements created by Helmholtz ID”. If you see any “urn:geant:helmholtz.de:group:GROUPNAME#login.helmholtz.de” entries, you are member of at least one such group, granting you access to services as well.

What should I do if I expect to lose access?

Access will still be possible if you join a collaboration group (e.g., VO). Please inform your point of contact at your center to request the creation of such a group and invite you to it. Once added, your access will continue uninterrupted.

So, please:

• If you are a Helmholtz-based project owner, make sure that any Helmholtz-based students or other persons at Helmholtz without employee status are invited to your projects (e.g. VO, gitlab projects, mattermost channels, etc) exactly the same way you invite non-Helmholtz external collaborators
• If you are a student or guest at a Helmholtz Center, and want to continue using Helmholtz Cloud Services, please ask your supervisor or project lead to invite you to a collaboration group (VO, gitlab projects, mattermost channels, etc). Being part of such a group will ensure your access continues after the change.

Contact

Should you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact the HIFIS team at support@hifis.net.

Changelog

• 2025-10-01: updated some wording on VOs and resource sharing.
• 2025-10-14: updated two bullet points on what to do for each role.