GUTs and supersymmetric GUTs in the very early universe

This talk is intended as background material for many of the other talks treating the possible applications of GUTs to the very early universe. I start with a review of the present theoretical and phenomenological status of GUTs before going on to raise some new issues for their prospective cosmological applications which arise in supersymmetric (susy) GUTs. The first section is an update on conventional GUTs, which is followed by a reminder of some of the motivations for going supersymmetric. There then follows a simple primer on susy and a discussion of the structure and phenomenology of simple sysy GUTs. Finally we come to the cosmological issues, including problems arising from the degeneracy of susy minima, baryosynthesis and supersymmetric inflation, the possibility that gravity is an essential complication in constructing susy GUTs and discussing their cosmology, and the related question of what mass range is allowed for the gravitino. Several parts of this write-up contain new material which has emerged either during the Workshop or subsequently. They are included here for completeness and the convenience of the prospective reader. Wherever possible, these anachronisms will be flagged so as to keep straight the historical record