Embedded software and systems are closely related to our daily life, which reside from smart appliances to unmanned trains. As the fastest growing industry, embedded systems will have great societal and environmental impacts. Therefore, the design and implementation of safe and efficient embedded software and systems have utmost importance. The ICESS-2015 conference is the 12th IEEE International Conference on Embedded Software and Systems. It provides an international forum for presenting and discussing emerging ideas and trends in embedded software and systems from both the research community as well as the industry. ICESS-2015 is sponsored by IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, and IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC). The ICESS-2015 conference is the next event in a series of highly successful international conferences on embedded software and systems (ESS), held as ICESS 2014 (Paris, France, August 2014), ICESS 2013 (Sydney, Australia, December 2013), ICESS 2012 (Liverpool, England, UK, June 2012), ICESS 2011 (Changsha, China, November 2011), ICESS 2010 (Bradford, UK, July 2010), ICESS 2009 (Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, May 2009), etc.