The stellar content of galaxies represents a record of their star  formation  history, and as such it tells about the formation of galaxies themselves. Stellar population studies offer the unique opportunity to date galaxies, or galaxy components. Since the early steps in the late sixties, major progress has been achieved in our capability to decode the stellar populations of galaxies of different types in the local Universe. Only within the last decade, modern telescopes like the VLT or the Hubble Space Telescope have pushed the observational access to the stellar populations in the very early Universe right into the main epoch of galaxy formation. Theories of galaxy formation have developed sophisticated modelling of the growth of structures along the redshift ladder, but many aspects of the formation of the stellar content of galaxies remain poorly understood.
The workshop will focus on the use of our current knowledge of stellar populations to set constraints on formation scenarios that may help clarifying the remaining discrepancies. As a Rosetta Stone, the more familiar language of stars may help to decipher the unknown idiom of galaxy formation. Our aim is to discuss the most recent developments in the field of stellar populations in galaxies, from the local universe up to the highest redshifts.