The articles for this e-book were all selected from papers presented at the Fourth European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education (HE) which was held in Oxford in the summer of 2005. The conference was aimed at academics and practitioners who share an interest in understanding the processes that disadvantage women in universities, and in evaluating measures intended to promote gender equality. The papers which have been selected here address issues concerned with women’s career advancement in universities. Some explore formal mechanisms for progression, and how women fare in advancement processes, providing detailed analyses of academic selection processes as well as issues around career progression for non academic staff, from which some general observations can be made. Other papers use mainly qualitative research methods to explore some of the cultural barriers to women’s progression.