The present status of scientific work involving highly ionized atoms is reviewed in this proceedings volume, which incorporates the progress made over the last two years. More than 20 invited articles cover the whole area of active research in this field, including applications in plasmas, ion-surface interactions, precision spectroscopy, electron-ion recombination and ionization, ion-atom collisions, storage-ring physics, and ion sources. Nearly 100 contributed papers deal with the latest theoretical and experimental achievements, presenting the reader with the current state of the art in highly charged ion physics.