The “Late Palaeozoic Eastern Tethys Research Group (LPETRG)”, hosted at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, is an international cooperative research group of excellence and innovation aimed at advancing interpretive models on the patterns, evolutionary and dynamic processes (both biotic and environmental) and underlying mechanisms of the eastern Tethyan region during the Late Palaeozoic and through the Permian-Triassic transition. The Group is fully funded by the National Science Foundation of China, with supplementary (including grant-in-aid) funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.