Topics that are expected to be discussed include:

• Formation of the Milky Way and of the Local Group: Cosmology, reionization and suppression of star formation, number of halos, theoretically expected properties, signatures of infall ("planes" of satellites, dwarf group infall?)
• The least massive Local Group inhabitants: Dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Census and global properties, missing satellite problem, evolutionary histories, detailed chemistry, inhomogeneities, orbits and disruption, ram pressure stripping
• The Galactic halo: halo structure, kinematics, chemistry; inner/outer halo dichotomy, detailed element abundances, extremely metal-poor stars, globular clusters, accretion signatures and streams
• The Galactic bulge, bar, centre: Ages, star formation history, chemistry, structure, kinematics. Halo vs. bulge. M31's bulge
• The Galactic thin and thick disk: Structure, ages, chemistry, gradients, origin, overdensities (CMa, Virgo...), moving groups
• The Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way: Global properties and structure of the Clouds, chemical evolution and star formation history, orbits and interaction
• M31 and M33: The giant stream, Structure and properties of halo and disk, chemistry, evolution
• Gaia: The Gaia mission, Gaia science overview, Galactic research with Gaia.
  Other space astrometry survey projects: Nano-JASMINE, JASMINE, SIM; scientific prospects and interplay with Gaia
• Other Galactic survey projects: SDSS, RAVE, Pan-STARRS, LAMOST, SSS, LSST, EUCLID, ...; scientific prospects and interplay with Gaia
• Gaia techniques and challenges; and ELSA