A pressure group for senior women in higher education celebrates its tenth anniversary next week.

Through the Glass Ceiling, a networking and lobbying group, was set up by Christine King, now vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University, and Diana Green, now vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.

Its aim was to support the few women in posts of dean or above.

Since then, half a dozen women have reached the level of vice-chancellor, although they still make up only a handful of the 115 members of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.

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Janet Finch at the University of Keele is the only female vice-chancellor of an old university.

Angela Crum Ewing, retired registrar at the University of Reading and a former chair of the pressure group, said new universities had, on the whole, been more supportive of the organisation.

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The Through the Glass Ceiling anniversary conference takes place on Thursday in York.