When the R&S Category was first introduced for InCommon, it was available only to InCommon participants. When REFEDS created the global Research and Scholarship Entity Category, InCommon-only R&S lost most of its relevance.  All InCommon-only R&S SPs were automatically converted to REFEDS R&S (also know as global R&S).

Due to differences in requirements, the same conversation could not be done for IdPs. (See Migrating an IdP to Global Research and Scholarship for additional historical context.)

InCommon-only R&S has been deprecated and is no longer issued to IdPs or SPs, although a number of IdPs still retain their InCommon-only status.

It is highly recommended that InCommon-only IdPs add support for R&S SPs internationally; see How to Apply for the Research and Scholarship (R&S) Entity Category for more information.

Further Reading

Comparing REFEDS and InCommon-only R and S categories