Program:
The program will be administered by 2 program directors who will be in residence in Budapest during the summer program. The program directors will be faculty members and one of the program directors will come from the United States and one will come from Hungary. The main job of the program directors will be to facilitate a link between mathematical research groups currently working together in Hungary and teams of American professors and students who wish to join those research groups during the summer program. Teams of 2-3 professors from the United States will write proposals to bring 4-7 students to Budapest during June and July for an 8-week REU experience in which students and faculty would join the research groups and seminars that are already in progress at the Hungarian institutions. This model provides a productive research experience not only for the undergraduate students involved in the program but also for the faculty mentors who have applied to participate. In addition, this type of program takes advantage of the mathematical expertise that exists in Budapest among the Hungarian mathematicians.

The professors and students applying to participate in the research teams need not come from the same institution Ð in fact one benefit of the program is that it will bring together students and professors from across the United States. The program directors will select 4 research team proposals for a total of approximately 20 students and 8 professors. These students and professors will form the core of the REU group and will be in residence in Budapest during the 8 weeks of the program. Groups will meet daily at the University facilities to work with the Hungarian research teams on their respective research projects.

In addition, on Wednesday afternoons, participants will attend a colloquia series addressing such issues as how to apply for fellowships and scholarships, how to prepare for graduate school, how to give a good math talk, how to publish a math research paper, how to write math papers using LaTeX, and other professional mathematical topics. On Friday mornings, the group of US faculty and students will convene and each group of students will make a 20 minute presentation to the group regarding the research and problems they are working on and what progress has been made. These talks should be prepared in advance and provide students with a weekly opportunity to practice giving a mathematical presentation to a knowledgeable audience. In addition, the group will attend seminars and colloquia at the Technical University as they occur.

As part of the summer research experience, students will be encouraged to attend a conference at one of the mathematical summer schools taking place throughout Europe. Research teams of faculty and students would travel together to the conference, which would provide an opportunity for interaction between American and European mathematicians.

Expected Outcomes:
A successful program would have each of the student participants presenting a poster at the Joint Meetings of the MAA, AMS and AWM in January of the following year. In addition, students would be encouraged to give talks at local MAA Section meetings and at Mathfest, the national MAA conference held in August. Students will also be encouraged to submit results to both undergraduate and standard peer-reviewed journals for publication.

In addition, a successful program will forge long term research connections between Hungarian and American mathematics faculty members. We anticipate that within the first 10 years of the program that one or more US faculty members would apply for Fulbright fellowships to spend a year conducting research in Budapest with the Hungarian faculty members they worked with as part of a summer research team. We would expect to see joint publications of US and Hungarian professors and also joint talks given at international conferences by the research teams of US and Hungarian professors.