Galactic Plane H$\alpha$ Surveys: IPHAS & VPHAS+
  The optical Galactic Plane H$\alpha$ surveys IPHAS and VPHAS+ are
dramatically improving our understanding of Galactic stellar populations and
stellar evolution by providing large samples of stars in short lived, but
important, evolutionary phases, and high quality homogeneous photometry and
images over the entire Galactic Plane. Here I summarise some of the
contributions these surveys have already made to our understanding of a number
of key areas of stellar and Galactic astronomy.
