The Advisory Panel, consisting of two co-chairs and eight members —including both women and men— from four continents, first met in Paris in February 2005. They produced draft recommendations and an outline of the report, accepted individual writing assignments, and agreed on a timetable for production of the report. Throughout the year, the Advisory Panel co-chairs met with the study director and IAC staff and interacted with Advisory Panel members.

The study began by circulating a questionnaire to all 95 science academies that belong to the InterAcademy Panel for International Issues (IAP). The institutions were asked about programmes that they had developed to attract women to science and technology, programmes to retain them, the success of these initiatives, and the salient issues that they hoped the Advisory Panel would address. Relevant reports from many of these academies, as well as government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and universities around the world, were then assembled. The Advisory Panel members themselves, some of whom had extensive knowledge of gender-equity issues in science and technology, provided additional information. All of these materials formed the inputs to this report.

 The Advisory Panel members had access to a central group website containing the input materials, both in their original forms and as they evolved into contributions to chapters. The Advisory Panel co-chairs, members, and staff went through several rounds of writing, reviewing, and fine-tuning, presenting the report to the IAC Executive Director in November 2005. It was then submitted to the IAC peer-review and monitoring processes, which took place through December 2005 and January 2006. The report’s final version represents the consensus views of all Advisory Panel members.