The theory of belief functions, also referred to as evidence theory or Dempster-Shafer theory, was first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, and was later developed by Glenn Shafer as a general framework for modeling epistemic uncertainty. These early contributions have been the starting points of many important developments, including the Transferable Belief Model and the Theory of Hints. The theory of belief functions is now well established as a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, and has well understood connections to other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories.

The biennial BELIEF conferences are dedicated to the confrontation of ideas, the reporting of recent achievements and the presentation of the wide range of applications of this theory. This conference series was started in Brest, France, in 2010. The second edition will be held in Compiègne, France, on 9-11 May, 2012. Compiègne is located in the Picardy region, 75 km north of Paris and at 40mn from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

This conference will provide opportunities to exchange ideas and present new results on the theory of belief functions and related areas such as random sets and possibility theory. Original contributions are solicited on theoretical aspects (including decision making, combination rules, continuous belief functions, independence and graphical models, statistical estimation, etc.), as well as on applications in various areas including, but not limited to data fusion, pattern recognition, clustering, tracking, data mining, signal and image processing, medical diagnosis, business decision, uncertainty in numerical models, etc.