It is our privilege and pleasure to invite you to the XVIII International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian, to be held at the Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia, August 11 – 15, 2015. The Carboniferous and Permian successions of Russia have a long history of study and are renowned for excellent outcrops that occur over a vast territory, a considerable variety of depositional types, and abundant fossils. This makes Russia one of the most famous and popular locations for basinal studies, global and regional tectonic reconstructions, paleogeographical and biostratigraphic research, and upper Paleozoic fossil collecting. Carboniferous and Permian research in Russia has recently seen a marked increase in activity. National and international projects have focused on documentation of candidates for global stratotypes for stage and substage boundaries in historical and newly discovered sections, and paleotectonic reconstructions of the Uralian Ocean, leading to new interpretations of the evolution of the Paleo-Tethys. Considerable progress was made in the study of Carboniferous and Permian successions in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Exciting fossil excavations revealed new faunas in the Cis-Uralian Region, which in combination with modern geochemistry technologies has led to great advances in our understanding of the paleoclimate at the end of the Paleozoic, and new insights into the causes and consequences of Carboniferous-Permian events, especially the P-T extinction. The XVIIIth ICCP meeting in Kazan will provide an important forum for discussion of the most relevant cutting-edge topics of Carboniferous-Permian geology and paleontology, and a unique opportunity to see and collect from exceptional geological localities in European Russia.