Developing a comprehensive understanding of the varied and complex processes associated with the formation of massive stars requires connecting a wide range of environments and physical size scales from galactic disks down to individual massive sources. Combining large scale surveys of our galactic plane with the sub-arcsecond images in the millimetre and sub-millimetre which ALMA now routinely produces, in principle allow us to map the flow of material from galactic environments through clouds to protostars. Increasingly these observations probe not only the structure and kinematics of regions, but also their chemistry and magnetic fields. Wide field surveys also help to place massive star formation in the wider context of the environment of our galaxy as well as other, more extreme, galaxies.

With the massive increase in spatial dynamic range and the volume of data now becoming available this meeting will provide the opportunity to assess the current state of our knowledge of massive star formation. In addition, it will help identify the key issues for future work and look forward to the expanding opportunities ALMA will continue to offer in the fields of galactic and extragalactic massive star formation as well as those provided by JWST, ELTs, SKA, ngVLA and other facilities in the future.

Previous meetings that were organised in this series include:

• The Soul of High-Mass Star Formation Conference, 2015
• Great Barriers in High-Mass Star Formation, 2010
• Massive Star Formation: Observations confront Theory, 2007
• Massive Star Birth: A Crossroads of Astrophysics, 2005 
  
• Hot Star Workshop III: The Earliest Stages of Massive Star Birth, 2001

This meeting includes a keynote talk from Prof Mark Krumholz and invited talks from Prof Henrik Beuther,  Prof Ian Bonnell,  Dr Gemma Busquet, Dr Claudia Cyganowski,  Dr Ana Duarte-Cabral,  Dr Laura Fissel, Dr Roberto Galván-Madrid, Dr Adam Ginsburg, Dr Katharine Johnston, Prof Ralf Klessen, Dr Frédérique Motte, Dr Nicolas Peretto, Prof Dimitra Rigopoulou and Dr Mark Thompson.