This workshop is supposed to be highly focused on two of the main approaches to quantum gravity: canonical loop quantum gravity and spin foam models.
Canonical loop quantum gravity and the spin foam approach are often seen as two complementary sides of the same theory: the latter covariantly encoding the dynamics of the former. There is much evidence for this conjecture and recent work has refocused attention on their precise relationship.
Moreover, increasing resources are being channeled into extracting the semi-classical properties of these theories, both as consistency checks and as hope rises that non-trivial effects may be predicted/detected at relatively low energies.
Both these topics invoke highly technical tools, and it is evidently beneficial to assemble a small group of active researchers with the common goal to understand the importance of these issues and to endeavour to solve the remaining problems.