Star formation is a vibrant field in contemporary astrophysics, combining a rich diversity of physics and chemistry, sophisticated simulations with supercomputers, and cutting edge observational facilities on the ground and in space to tackle both fundamental and complex problems related to the origin of stars and galaxies in our relative neighbourhood - the Milky Way galaxy - and in the distant Universe.

To tackle the fundamental questions in this field, it has become clear that a variety of physical processes operating over vastly different scales, from very local phenomena such as thermodynamics and chemistry of the interstellar medium, over the transfer of radiation within a galaxy, to the largest scales dominated by gravity at the scale of galaxies and the cosmic web must be understood. This obviously requires combining different techniques and approaches.

To facilitate exchanges between various researchers and communities in this field we propose a symposium on the topics described above. Development of numerical simulations and computational tools is progressing very fast, and recent/new observational facilities such as Herschel, ALMA, and others are now providing us with important new empirical information.

The EWASS2014 provides a unique framework and timely moment, allowing us to gather a broad diversity of specialists in different fields to share their expertise and latest results.

Programme
The symposium will focus on the following topics aspects of star formation in galaxies:

• From molecular clouds to star formation: star formation laws
• The different phases of gas in galaxies: fuel for star formation
• Stellar and supernova feedback
• The impact of galaxy environment
• IR-mm observations
• Numerical simulations

Invited speakers

• Edvige Corbelli (Arcetri)
• Filippo Fraternali(Bologna, Groningen)
• Fabian Heitsch (USA)
• Ralf Klessen (Heidelberg)
• Amelie Saintonge (London)
• Linda Tacconi (Munich)
• Romain Teyssier (Zurich)

Scientific organizers
Francoise Combes (Paris), Pascale Jablonka (Lausanne), Ralf Klessen (Heidelberg), Lucio Mayer (Zurich, co-chair), Daniel Schaerer (Geneva, co-chair)

Contact
Daniel Schaerer, Geneva University (daniel.schaererATunige.ch; replace AT by @ )