Nearby Protoclusters as Laboratories for Understanding Star Formation on Galactic Scales

Detailed studies of nearby cluster-forming molecular clouds can help us understand the physical processes by which most stars form in galaxies. I review recent advances made on this subject. Submillimeter observations of nearby protoclusters suggest that stars are generally built from finite, detached reservoirs of mass inside molecular cloud cores, and point to a cloud fragmentation origin for the IMF. Much progress in this field will come from future large submillimeter instruments such as Herschel and ALMA. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.