Programme leaders: J.M. Aarts, J. van Mill
Central in this programme has been and will be the study of various topological
objects ranging from the classical -- Hilbert cube, plane continua arising in
dynamical topological dynamics and the 
ech-Stone compactification --
to the more recent -- function spaces with the topology of pointwise
convergence, two- and 
-points sets, and non-metric continua.
Techniques from many branches of mathematics are brought to bear on the study
of these objects; first and foremost from the world of (general) topology
itself but also from Functional Analysis, set Theory, Model Theory
and Geometry.
Recent work on the structure of hereditarily indecomposable continua
illustrates this: purely topological methods were combined with results from
Model Theory in the construction of interesting examples of such spaces.
In a totally different vein is the study of the structure of sets in the plane
that meet every line in a specific number of points; the techniques here
are very geometric in nature.
History and Philosophy of Mathematics
Since the last report the programme has been enriched by the addition of
researchers in the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Status of the programme
The Dutch topology groups enjoy an excellent international reputation,
and collaborate extensively with renowned researchers in Canada, the
United States, Poland and the Czech republic for instance.
They play an important role in the international organization of
topological research.
Within the Netherlands there are links to analysis, dynamical systems
theory and probability theory, which sometimes provide sources of problems
for topological research.
Especially the links with dynamical systems theory could provide insights in
the asymptotical behaviour of physical systems.
This requires a deep understanding of the topology of the underlying spaces,
and a solid knowledge of dimension theory and other branches of topology.