Introduction to "Schubert varieties, equivariant cohomology and characteristic classes

The conference IMPANGA15 took place in Będlewo (Poland) during the week 12–18 April 2015 and was organised by participants of the seminar IMPANGA. This volume is a collection of contributions by the participants of the conference as well as notes from the major lecture series of the seminar in the period 2010-2015. Both original research papers and self-contained expository surveys can be found in the volume. The articles circulate around a broad range of topics within algebraic geometry: vector bundles, Schubert varieties, degeneracy loci, homogeneous spaces, equivariant cohomology, Thom polynomials, characteristic classes, symmetric functions and polynomials, algebraic geometry in positive characteristic.