About BIEN

Overview

Founded in 1986, the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) aims to serve as a link between all individuals and groups interested in basic income (i.e. a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement) and to foster informed discussion on this topic throughout the world.

Members of BIEN include academics, students and social policy practitioners as well as people actively engaged in political, social and religious organisations. They vary in terms of disciplinary backgrounds and political affiliations no less than in terms of age and citizenship.

The mission of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) is to offer education to the wider public about alternative arguments about, proposals for, and problems concerning, basic income as idea, institution, and public policy practice. To this end, BIEN organises public conferences around the world on an annual basis in which empirical research and new ideas are disseminated and discussed. BIEN promotes and serves as a repository of published research, including congress papers, an academic blog featuring balanced debate for and against the basic income proposal in different contexts and forms, and by means of an independent academic journal linked with BIEN – Basic Income Studies. BIEN does not subscribe to any particular version of basic income, and fosters evidenced-based research, plural debate, and critical engagement about basic income and related ideas and public policy developments. Individuals connected with BIEN – including affiliated organisations – may express particular opinions about basic income, but they are not opinions of BIEN. BIEN’s explicit mission is to remain neutral among competing arguments for and against basic income and the relation of basic income with other ideas and policies.

By the early 2000s, “Basic Income European Network” had become somewhat of a misnomer, as scholars and activists from other continents have actively joined the network. BIEN expanded its scope to become the “Basic Income Earth Network” in 2004. It is an international network that serves as a link between individuals and groups interested in basic income, and fosters informed discussion of the topic throughout the world.

Executive Committee

A new Executive Committee was elected at the General Assembly held on the 26th August 2018 

BIEN’s Executive Committee (EC) is elected by the General Assembly. It usually meets once a month via the internet. Within the limits set by the decisions of the General Assembly and BIEN’s constitution as a charitable organization, it takes any action it judges useful to the pursuit of BIEN’s purposes.

Members of the Executive Committee 

Louise Haagh Chair
Sarath Davala Vice Chair
Julio Aguirre Secretary
Mark Wadsworth Treasurer
Jamie Cooke Assistant Treasurer
André Coelho BI News Editor
Tyler Prochazka BI Features Editor
Leah Hamilton BI News and Volunteer Recruitment Officer
Kate McFarland Research Manager
Toru Yamamori Research Manager
Jasper van den Bor Affiliate Outreach
Julio Linares Public Outreach
Demétrio Ruivo Website manager
Aoife Hegarty Fundraiser
Anne Miller Bank Account Trustee
Jay Ginn Bank Account Trustee
Jake Eliot Bank Account Trustee

Volunteers

General Manager

Malcolm Torry, Director of Citizen’s Income Trust, UK was appointed General Manager by the EC in May 2007.

Features Editor, Basic Income News:

Tyler Prochazka (tyler.prochazka@yahoo.com), United States,

BIEN is entirely run by volunteers. It has no paid employees. It has created or is in the process of creating at least six volunteer task forces. We are interested in people who want to volunteer for any of them and in people who have additional ideas they would like to volunteer for. Click here to find out how to volunteer and what volunteers are doing.

The currently existing or forming task forces are:

Non EC members with official roles in BIEN

Honorary Co-Presidents

The Honorary Co-Presidents are past Co-Chairs of BIEN who continue to be actively involved in BIEN and who have been confirmed in this status by the General Assembly.

Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany.

Guy Standing, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, United Kingdom.

Eduardo Suplicy, Federal Senator, São Paulo, Brazil.

Members of the International Advisory Board

The International Board consists of the current members of the Executive Committee, representatives of the recognized national affiliates, and all former members of BIEN’s Executive Committee (listed below).

Chair

Philippe Van Parijs, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Former members of BIEN’s Executive Committee:

Anja Askeland
Borja Barragué
Simon Birnbaum
David Casassas
Alexander de Roo
Jurgen De Wispelaere
Kelly Ernst
Andrea Fumagalli
Louise Haagh
Seán Healy
Lena Lavinas
Edwin Morley-Fletcher
James Mulvale
Eri Noguchi
José Antonio Noguera
Claus Offe
Ilona Ostner
Steven Quilley
Dorothee Schulte-Basta
Guy Standing
Eduardo Suplicy
Robert J. Van Der Veen
Ingrid Van Niekirk
Philippe Van Parijs
Walter Van Trier
Yannick Vanderborght
Karl Widerquist
Lieselotte Wohlgenannt
Pablo Yanes
Almaz Zelleke

Reports from the General Assembly

Minutes of the General Assembly

Treasurer’s Reports

BIEN is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom

Constitution

Charity registration number: 1177066

The 2018 General Assembly will be held at Tampere in Finland on the 26th August 2018

See the General Assembly page for further details

Press Contacts

Louise Haagh, Chair of BIEN
louise.haagh@york.ac.uk,

Sarath Davala, Vice chair of BIEN

sarathdavala@gmail.com

A Short History of BIEN

The origins (1983-1986) – An idea, a collective, a prize. In the Autumn of 1983, three young researchers decided to set up a working group in order to explore the implications of an extremely simple, unusual but attractive idea which one of them had proposed to call, in a paper circulated a few months earlier, “allocation universelle”. Paul-Marie Boulanger, Philippe Defeyt and Philippe Van Parijs were then, or had recently been, attached to the departments of demography, economics and philosophy, respectively, of the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). The group became known as the Collectif Charles Fourier. Its main output was a special issue of the Brussels monthly La Revue nouvelle (April 1985). But along the way, it won a prize, with a provocative summary of the idea and its putative consequences, in an essay competition on the future of work organised by the King Baudouin Foundation.

The first meeting – With the money it thus unexpectedly earned, the Collectif Charles Fourier decided to organise a meeting to which they would invite a number of people to whom the idea of an unconditional basic income had, they gradually discovered, independently occurred . This became the first international conference on basic income, held in Louvain-la-Neuve in September 1986, with sixty invited participants. This was quite an extraordinary event, with many seemingly lonely fighters suddenly discovering a whole bunch of kin spirits. They included, among others, Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, Jan-Otto Andersson, Yoland Bresson, Paul de Beer, Alexander de Roo, Rosheen Callender, Nic Douben, Marie-Louise Duboin, Ian Gough, Pierre Jonckheere, Bill Jordan, Greetje Lubbi, Annie Miller, Edwin Morley-Fletcher, Claus Offe, Hermione Parker, Riccardo Petrella, David Purdy, Guy Standing, Robert van der Veen and Georg Vobruba.

Seeds of a lasting network – At the final session of the conference, several participants expressed the wish that some more permanent association be created, with the task of publishing a regular newsletter and organising regular conferences. Guy Standing proposed calling this association Basic Income European Network, which gathered an easy consensus, since no one could beat the beauty of the corresponding acronym (BIEN). Its purpose, later enshrined in its Statutes, was formulated as follows: BIEN aims to serve as a link between individuals and groups interested in basic income, and to foster informed discussion on this topic throughout the world. Peter Ashby (National Council for Voluntaty organisations), Claus Offe (University of Bremen) and Guy Standing (International Labour Organisation) became co-chairmen. Walter Van Trier (University of Antwerp) became secretary, and Alexander de Roo (parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament) treasurer.

BIEN’s past and current activities – From 1986 on, in addition to smaller events, BIEN has been organising one major international congress every second year, in an increasingly structured and professional way. In each case, a major academic or international organisation has accepted to host it, and financial support has been forthcoming from many sources, both public and private, both national and international. BIEN’s first two congresses were small enough to lend themselves to the publication of proceedings, but subsequent congresses had far too many contributions for them to fit into a volume of proceedings. Many of the papers presented were independently published and several found their ways into three books largely inspired by BIEN’s congresses:

  • Philippe Van Parijs ed., Arguing for Basic Income. Ethical Foundations for a Radical Reform. London & New York: Verso, 1992
  • Robert J. van der Veen & Loek Groot eds., Basic Income on the Agenda. Policy Options and Political Feasibility. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000
  • Standing, G. ed., Promoting Income Security as a Right. Europe and North America, London: Anthem Press.

Since 1988 BIEN published a Newsletter three times per year since 1988 (33 issues, some in collaboration with the London-based Citizen’s Income Study Center). Publication of the Newsletter has been discontinued, but instead since January 2000 BIEN has started publishing a regular NewsFlash. BIEN’s NewsFlash appears every second month and is dispatched electronically to over 1500 subscribers. Since 1996 BIEN maintains a very substantial website. All issues of the newsletter and the newsflash can be downloaded from BIEN’s website. Finally, BIEN keeps an archive in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) which includes, among other items, a great number of books and reports on BI. The titles currently stored in the archive are listed here (updated November 2010).

After its Congress in Barcelona (2004), BIEN extended its scope: now its name is Basic Income Earth Network. All life members of the Basic Income European Network, many of whom were non-Europeans, automatically became life members of the Basic Income Earth Network.