Melvin Hoare (Leeds, UK) and Henrik Beuther (MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany)

Massive star formation underpins much of astrophysics from feedback into the ISM, the evolution of galaxies and signposting the very first objects in the universe. Our own Milky Way provides a close-up view which is an essential part of the effort to understand the physical processes controlling the birth of massive stars. This parallel session will focus on the rapid progress in our understanding of massive star formation in the Galaxy as a result of recent advances in survey astronomy.

Wide field surveys are allowing us to elucidate the conditions, environments and manner in which massive stars form with samples that at last have a firm statistical basis. These result from new surveys such as IPHAS(ING)/VPHAS(VST), UKIDSS(UKIRT)/VVV(VISTA), GLIMPSE(Spitzer), Hi-GAL (Herschel), ATLASGAL(APEX)/JPS(JCMT), MMB(Parkes/Effelsberg) and CORNISH(ATCA/VLA). UK and German astronomers lead most of these surveys and the NAM will be a good opportunity to bring the two communities together. Topics will include the Galactic distribution, evolutionary sequences and phase lifetimes, massive young clusters, triggering and star formation efficiency and the local Schmidt-Kennicutt law in an extragalactic context.