In 2000 the National Science Foundation announced a grant to the Department of Mathematics of Duke University under the program Grants for Vertical Integration of Research and Education in the Mathematical Sciences (VIGRE). The VIGRE grant is for five years, beginning July 1, 2000.

The principal components of Duke's VIGRE program are

• VIGRE Postdoctoral Fellows
• The Graduate Program
• PRUV: Program for Research for Undergraduate with VIGRE
• CHISEL: Carolina High School Education Leadership Program.
• VIGRE program assessment, which seeks to monitor and evaluate the impact of VIGRE on our undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral program.

• Integration of research and education at all levels
• Broadening education at all levels
• Recruitment of students and postdocs
• Strong mentoring of students and postdocs
• Improved teaching and communication skills
• Shortended time to Ph.D.
• Dissemination of our VIGRE activities to the mathematics community

• Strong undergraduate research
• Strong disciplinary and interdisciplinary reserach (opportunities): mathematical biology, computational topology, geometry and physics (string theory and astronomy), thin films
• Effective postdoctoral program; postdocs have the opportunity to participate in grant writing workshops
• Mentoring for gradudate students and postdocs; see article by our Chair, Richard Hain, which appeared in the report of the AMS, ASA, MAA, and SIAM Workshop on VIGRE (May 2002, Reston, VI)
• TA training; no teaching duty for first-year graduate students
• Coherent graduate curriculum
• Computing requirement: scientific computing for applied students ( I and II), computing in geometry and algebra for pure students (2002, 2004)
• Novel undergraduate cryptography course (2003, 2004)
• Strong efforts to recruit math majors, especially female