In his early days, before he built an academic program made up of thousands of students, Professor Ed Coyle needed computers. 

His department at Purdue University couldn’t spare any at the time, but a colleague in development pointed him to Comdisco, a company in Chicago that leased computers and agreed to give him machines that were coming back in from an expired lease. They were not the latest and greatest computers, but they would do the job. 

So, he and fellow professor, Hank Dietz, rented a truck, drove north from Purdue, loaded two pallets of aging PCs onto the back and hauled them home. Out of roughly 25 machines, a graduate student managed to get 13 working. 

“That was the hardware that Leah Jamieson, Hank Dietz, and I used to start the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program,” Coyle said. “Three decades later, the program it evolved into has shown how research can be more inclusive and better sustained, by overcoming the barriers between semesters and among disciplines.” 

The program is now known as Vertically Integrated Projects, or VIP, where students at all levels work in long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary, team-based projects embedded in faculty research. 

This summer, Coyle stepped down as director of VIP at Georgia Tech, where the program came of age. Professor Morris Cohen will take over leadership of the program. 

“It’s difficult to think about the big picture and stay focused on the small details, but Ed has been able to do both while building VIP,” Cohen said. “That’s what’s allowed it to grow the way it has, and I’m really honored to be part of it going forward.” 

Coyle isn’t moving away from VIP completely. As the program has grown, more of his work now lives within the VIP Consortium, a nonprofit network of more than 60 universities with their own VIP programs, where he will now focus on its continued growth.

Students start as novices, grow into contributors, and often become leaders. The continuity allows for projects that extend well beyond a semester’s constraints, with some lasting decades.

“You’re working with both new and experienced team members, so you learn a lot just by collaborating,” said Mose Kim, a computer science major and VIP student. “Your ideas actually become part of a project. It ends up being a much more hands-on experience than what you usually get in the classroom.”

Outcomes Too Difficult to Ignore 

Students who participate in VIP for three or more semesters are about three times more likely to have a job at graduation than those who do not, according to internal research led by Julie Sonnenberg-Klein, assistant director of Georiga Tech VIP.  

For faculty, the presence of a large, stable team can also be an advantage when pursuing funding. Research proposals increasingly emphasize education and broader impact, and VIP provides both while enabling work to continue at a larger scale. 

“Faculty are excited to be part of VIP because it connects them with talented, motivated students working on real projects,” said Jack Bringardner, who co-directs the VIP program at Colorado School of Mines. “Students tell me it’s often the work they talk about in interviews, because it shows what they built, how they contributed, and how they worked on a team.” 

Many industry partners now seek direct involvement in VIP by funding projects or recruiting from teams. 

“It has become a premier workforce development program because it mirrors the way work actually happens in the real world,” Coyle said.  

Beyond Georgia Tech 

Even in the early years, representatives from other universities were interested in replicating what they were seeing at Georgia Tech, and by the mid-2010s, those informal conversations had begun to coalesce into something more organized.  

Backed in part by a $5 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, Georgia Tech helped convene a group of institutions interested in adopting the model. 

The result was the VIP Consortium, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Georgia that serves as both a hub and a support system for universities with their own VIP programs. 

The Consortium now includes more than 60 institutions worldwide, from nearby schools like the University of Georgia and Kennesaw State University to leading U.S. engineering programs at Purdue University, New York University, and Rice University, as well as international programs including Inha University in South Korea, National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan, and the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Dozens more are in various stages of exploration or adoption. 

Some programs begin in engineering, others in the sciences or even the arts, but the core elements—large, vertically integrated teams, long-term projects, and close alignment with faculty work—are always the same.

VIP For Everyone 

What began with a refurbished set of computers has expanded into something far broader, and Coyle will now work to further grow and stabilize the VIP Consortium. 

“None of this would have been possible without the people who believed in the vision early and helped sustain it over the years,” Coyle said. “I’m especially grateful to the Georgia Tech leaders who championed VIP at critical moments, including Gary May, Doug Williams, Arijit Raychowdhury, and Raheem Beyah, as well as the Georgia Research Alliance and its leaders Mike Cassidy, Susan Shows, and Tim Denning. Their support has been instrumental in helping the program grow from an idea into a global community.” 

The current challenge is less about proving that the model works than making room for it within systems that weren’t designed for it, according to Coyle. 

University accreditation requirements, particularly around senior design courses, can interrupt the continuity that makes long-term teams effective. Departments vary in how they count VIP toward degree progress, and even at institutions where it is well established, the program can be difficult to categorize. 

“The real work is figuring out how to make something like VIP function in every existing environment,” said Coyle. “I really think it has a chance to succeed in an even larger way. Our goal is to make VIP available to all faculty and students anywhere in the world.”