Group Representation Theory is a central area of Algebra, with important and deep connections to areas as varied as topology, algebraic geometry, number theory, Lie theory, homological algebra, and mathematical physics. Born more than a century ago, the area still abounds with basic problems and fundamental conjectures, some of which have been open for over five decades. Very recent breakthroughs have led to the hope that some of these conjectures can finally be settled. In turn, recent results in group representation theory have helped achieve substantial progress in a vast number of applications.

The goal of the program is to investigate all these deep problems and the wealth of new results and directions, to obtain major progress in the area, and to explore further applications of group representation theory to other branches of mathematics.

Traditional enumerative geometry asks certain questions to which the expected answer is a number: for instance, the number of lines incident with two points in the plane (1, Euclid), or the number of twisted cubic curves on a quintic threefold (317 206 375). It has however been recognized for some time that the numerics is often just the tip of the iceberg: a deeper exploration reveals interesting geometric, topological, representation-, or knot-theoretic structures. This semester-long program will be devoted to these hidden structures behind enumerative invariants, concentrating on the core fields where these questions start: algebraic and symplectic geometry.