The 2012 Gordon Research Conference on Photoions, Photoionization and Photodetachment will present forefront research featuring light induced ejection and scattering of electrons in a variety of systems ranging from atoms, molecules, ions, radicals, to clusters and biomolecules. These basic phenomena are central to many emerging fields of modern atomic, molecular, chemical and optical physics, with remarkable breakthroughs in the recent years. The unprecedented performance of novel light sources, including free electron laser facilities delivering high intensity femtosecond pulses in the extreme UV to X-ray spectral range, attosecond X-UV sources produced in high harmonic generation, high resolution synchrotron and laser facilities, have dramatically enlarged the scope of the investigations addressing fundamental issues such as electron motion, delayed ionization, electronic correlation and electron-nuclear coupling mechanisms inducing nuclear motion and chemical reaction dynamics. This conference focuses as well on innovative developments in photoelectron spectroscopy, momentum imaging and coincidence techniques, molecular alignment, internal cooling and quantum state selectivity, mass spectrometry… which provide opportunities to characterize key features of structure, dynamics and reactivity, with implications in astrophysical and plasma environments, cluster and biomolecule physical chemistry. It highlights theoretical method development for electron scattering, photoionization and photodetachment from simple to complex systems, with extensions to related high-field topics including tunnel ionization, high harmonic generation, and rescattering. The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers from various areas, experimentalists and theorists, physicists and chemists - all of whom share a deep interest in the science of the electronic continuum.