The conference, organized by the Peri-Tethys Programme and Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP), was thus devoted to the peri-Tethyan platforms and basins, and deals mainly with areas comprised between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Besides this geographic limitation to the Techyan domain, this conference took up and discussed the thematic approaches and objectives which would be supported in the future by the consortium for the study of peri-Tethyan platforms.