The history of Czechoslovak paleontological conferences began in 1961 at the Smolenice Castle, where the first meeting of paleontologists from Czechoslovakia (at that time still a common state of Czechs and Slovaks) took place. In the following period, until 1977, when the 8th paleontological conference was held in Sokolov (Czech Republic), these events were organized at annual to three-year intervals in various cities in Czechoslovakia. After the conference in Sokolov, there was a certain „vacuum“, which was filled only with special seminars (e.g. the meeting of micropaleontologists in Hodonín) and a unique international event of micropaleontologists (18th European Colloquy on Micropaleontology in 1983). In 1988, after 11 long years, the meetings of the paleontological society were renewed at another Czechoslovak paleontological conference in Ružbašská Míľava (Slovakia). After this conference, several events of Czech and Slovak paleontologists took place on the occasion of the anniversaries of important paleontologists.

       In 1993, Czechoslovakia was divided into two independent states, which reduced the base of paleontologists in each country. The development of science in a unifying Europe and in a globalizing world required much broader and more comprehensive cooperation on an international basis. At the turn of the millennium, therefore, prof. R. Brzobohatý from the Masaryk University in Brno and doc. J. Michalík from the Geological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava proposed to renew traditional Czech-Slovak paleontological conferences. This plan was successfully implemented in 2000 when the renewed era of annual meetings of paleontologists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia was launched and took place in Brno. One of the goals of the organizers in the next years was to increase the number of paleontologists and experts from other, especially neighboring countries speaking Slavic languages, and thus expand mutual cooperation, gain new contacts and increase the level of this scientific discipline. This initiative was successful and in 2002 our Polish colleagues participated in the 3rd paleontological conference in Bratislava for the first time. Since then, paleontological conferences have been held alternately in various cities in the Czech, Slovak and Polish Republics. Today, their participants are not only experts from these three countries, but also from other countries in Europe and the world.

       Joint meetings of paleontologists take place in a friendly and constructive atmosphere, enabling rapid exchange of information, verification and comparison of the results. Due to the informal basis, communication in mother languages as well as in English are an important platform for the development of mutual cooperation. The scientific level is raised by the publication of the conference proceedings and paleontological excursions.
Authors: K. Fordinál, D. Boorová