Scientific Rationale

Over the next decade, by the time of first-light of the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), an incredible wealth of data will become available through many new survey facilities. Astronomy will enter an era of surveys. At the same time, ELTs will open a new parameter space of unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution.
This workshop is aimed at exploring the synergies between these two approaches. It will review ongoing and forthcoming survey projects and explore the developments that these will bring to a wide range of science areas, including exo-planets, star formation, stellar populations, galaxy formation/evolution and cosmology.

It will address two broad questions:

  • Along with surveys conducted by current and forthcoming observatories, how will the upcoming dedicated survey facilities (such as, to name just a few, KEPLER, GAIA, LSST, DES, VST, VISTA, Pan-STARRS, WFIRST, SCUBA-2, WISE, EUCLID, PLATO, SKA and pathfinders, etc) profit from follow-up by the ELTs?
  • To what extent do the ELTs (GMT, TMT, E-ELT) require surveys to prepare scientific breakthroughs?

The goal is to bring together the survey and ELT communities and to define first strategies to maximise the success of both paths.

See the Survey Wordle!