"What drives the growth of black holes" is the question asked at the international workshop held at the Calman Learning Centre at Durham University, United Kingdom, 19-22 April 2010.

This workshop will explore the processes that drive accretion onto supermassive black holes, from the most luminous distant quasars to more quiescent local systems. Currently there are conflicting discussions in the literature over which processes are most important, with different observations or theoretical studies often providing apparently contradictory results, as well as theorists often disagreeing with the observers.

One cause of these disagreements may be that we are exploring systems with a very wide range in black hole mass, Eddington ratio, redshift, and environment. The workshop aims to clarify the ranges of parameter space that are probed by different studies, and help understand how the key physical processes may vary with these parameters.

The workshop will feature an exciting program of both observational and theoretical talks and posters as well as active discussion.

The main questions to be addressed will be:

1. How does gas accrete onto black holes, from ~kpc scales to < 1 pc scales?
2. What are the links between black-hole growth and their host galaxies and large-scale environments?
3. What fuels the rapid growth of the most massive (and also the first) black holes?
4. What is the detailed nature of AGN feedback and its effects on black hole fueling and star formation?

For further information please take a look at the workshop's website