What kinds of stars form, and by what physical mechanisms they form, lie at the very heart of modern astrophysics. Star formation regulates the cosmic baryon cycle by controlling how gas is converted into stars and returned to the interstellar medium through stellar feedback. It drives the production and redistribution of chemical elements in the Universe, shaping the enrichment history of galaxies across cosmic time. At the same time, star formation strongly influences the formation and evolutionary pathways of galaxies, and it also plays a fundamental role on the smallest physical scales, where it is directly connected to the origin of planetary systems, circumstellar dust, and the emergence of complex structures in the interstellar medium.

The complex, multi-scale and highly non-linear nature of the star formation process means that several key questions, already raised in seminal review studies decades ago (e.g. Shu, Adams & Lizano 1987; Miller & Scalo 1979), remain central research topics today. What are the physical initial conditions that determine when, where, and with what efficiency stars form? Does star formation follow the same governing principles in the Milky Way as in galaxies at high redshift, where gas fractions, turbulence, metallicity, and environmental conditions can be radically different? How do dynamical processes in young star clusters, such as mass segregation, tidal interactions, and cluster disruption, influence the resulting stellar populations and ultimately the observable properties of galaxies?

Our group is funded through the MUNI Award in Science and Humanities programme within the project “Bridging Cosmic Scales: Understanding Star Formation from Molecular Clouds to Galactic Structures.”