On March 12, 2021, the Chinese Society of Paleontology released the results of the "Top Ten Advances in Chinese Paleontology 2020" in Nanjing. The selected results were led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Northwestern University, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Sun Yat-sen University and other research institutes and universities.

The three achievements led by NIGPAS include: the Cambrian Explosion team led by Prof. ZHU Maoyan which discovered Kylinxia, a key transitional type in the Cambrian Chengjiang Fauna of Yunnan, about 518 million years ago, to answer the "mystery of arthropod origin". The team led by Prof. Bo Wang has advanced the fossil record of animal sperm at least 50 million years based on specimens from Kachin amber in Myanmar. And the team led by Prof. Yongdong Wang and Prof. Shucheng Xie from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) has achieved innovative results in the study of climate change and forest fire events at the turn of the Triassic - Jurassic.