Studying the disk of the Milky Way in its cosmological context, as reflected in the title of this conference, was pioneered by Bengt Strömgren, in whose honour we are gathered here. A significant legacy of his is the understanding that advances are achieved by making connections among fields that are tenuously related on initial inspection. When the tools to achieve this were not available, Bengt Strömgren developed the necessary techniques, such as Strömgren photometry to quantify the local stellar population.