Forum on specification & Design Languages (FDL) is a well established international forum devoted to dissemination of research results, practical experiences and new ideas in the application of specification, design and verification languages to the design, modelling and verification of integrated circuits, complex hardware/software embedded systems, and mixed-technology systems. Modelling and specification concepts push the development of new design and verification methodologies to system level thus providing a means for model-driven design of complex information processing systems in a variety of application domains. One of the principal advantages of FDL is that it brings together four related thematic areas and gives an opportunity to gain up-to-date knowledge in many broad areas of the fast evolving field of system design and verification.

FDL 2012 will be held in Vienna, Austria, in September 2012 and will be the fifteenth FDL conference following a series of highly successful events that took place in Lausanne, Lyon, Tübingen, Marseille, Frankfurt am Main, Lille, Darmstadt, Barcelona, Stuttgart, Sophia Antipolis, Southampton, and Oldenburg. FDL is organized in technical cooperation with the the IEEE. FDL papers will be available online via IEEEXplore after the conference.

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million (2.4 million within the metropolitan area, more than 25% of Austria's population), and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 9th-largest city by population in the European Union. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, such as the United Nations and OPEC.

Vienna lies in the east of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants, and this region is referred to as Twin City.In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Vienna is often said to be "The City of Dreams" because it was home to one of the world's greatest interpreters of dreams, Professor Sigmund Freud.

Vienna has its roots in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city is well known for playing an essential role as a leading European Music Centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The Historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as the late-19th-century Ringstrasse lined with grand buildings, monuments and parks. Analytically, the city was ranked 1st globally for a culture of innovation in 2007 and 2008.