The first and the second conferences on "Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors across Europe" were organised and hosted by Istanbul Technical University on 11th of November 2008 and 12-14 April 2010. In these conferences we shared experiences and developed new ideas to improve the conditions for women academics to remove the barriers for horizontal and vertical segregation. The participants of these conferences agreed upon furthering this exchange and establishing a network by holding similar conferences regularly in the future.

Istanbul Technical University is happy to announce the third conference on "Beyond The Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities" which will be held in Istanbul on 21-23 May 2012. The objectives of this conference are to examine the achievements, challenges and opportunities that women rectors experience in their positions and discuss the strategies that can be used to improve their performances as women rectors. The conference aims to achieve these objectives through the analysis and comparison of different international practices and policies. We also would like to invite women vice-rectors to take part in this conference as they have great potential to be future rectors/presidents of the universities.

Most of you were informed about and some of you attended the World Women Presidents Forum's 5th Conference at Xiamen/China in November 4-6, 2011. We are also inviting our Chinese colleagues to this conference and organising a session to start the preparations for the next World Conference. This session will serve as a "sub-conference" to the 6th WWPF Conference.

As one of the few women academics to reach the position of rectorship you are cordially invited to contribute to this conference by sharing your own administrative experiences and knowledge with other women university presidents from around the world. We would appreciate if you can submit a paper on one of the two themes of the conference:
1. Achievements, challenges and opportunities that women rectors are experiencing in their position,
2.Strategies that can be used to improve their performances as women rectors.

Please inform us about your intention to make a contribution to this event until 2nd March 2012. We look forward to meeting you on May 21-23, 2012 in Istanbul.