Abstract　 　 
The availability over the past ~decade of space and ground facilities that have combined large field-of-view with unprecedented sensitivity from the UV to the far-infrared and the millimeter has enabled the investigation of star formation and its link to its fuel, the molecular gas, over spatial scales that are considerably smaller than a galaxy. This has enabled deeper understanding of star formation processes, but also posed new challenges, driven by stochastic sampling and the spatial resolution of non-isolated systems. I will discuss how these challenges affect the results obtained so far, and how we should proceed in the future to circumvent limitations and progress in out understanding of the link between star formation and gas.