A generic algebra associated to certain Hecke algebras

We initiate the systematic study of endomorphism algebras of permutation modules and show they are obtainable by a descent from a certain "generic" Hecke algebra, infinite-dimensional in general, coming from the universal enveloping algebra of gl_n (or sl_n). The endomorphism algebras and the generic algebras are cellular. We give several equivalent descriptions of these algebras, find a number of explicit bases, and describe indexing sets for their irreducible representations.