Executive Committee posts and postholders
Chair:
Sarath Davala
Sarath Davala is an Indian sociologist based in Hyderabad, India. He co-founded India Network for Basic Income and Mission Possible 2030 – both organisations working on basic income related issues. From 1993 to 2000, he was an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Between 2010 and 2014, he was the Research Director of the Madhya Pradesh Basic Income Pilot Project. He is the co-author of the book: “Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India”, which summarised the findings of the MP BI pilot study. He is currently co-leading another basic income pilot with waste collectors in the city of Hyderabad, India, a project initiated by University of Bath, and supported by European Research Council. Sarath is also collaborating with different agencies to innovate solutions to reach cash the last mile in the rural parts of India.
Deputy Chair:
Hilde Latour
Hilde Latour has a background in biomedical sciences and cultural anthropology and years of experience in program and knowledge management. She is a life member of BIEN, board member of Basisinkomen Nederland (Dutch BIEN) and co-founder of Mission Possible 2030 – Basic Income the key to SDG. As a guest lecturer at the blockchain minor – International Financial Management and Control at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, she explores the boundaries of paradigm shifts, such as Building Commons on the blockchain, a new narrative for Basic Income.
Treasurer:
Lindsay Stirton
Lindsay is a Professor of Public Law at the University of Sussex. His academic interests are wide-ranging academic, spanning administrative law and public administration in the UK and elsewhere. Lindsay’s interest in basic income has to date been centred on the administrative analysis of basic income policies, and he has published widely on this topic. More recently, Lindsay’s interest has extended to understanding the dynamics of political and governmental support for basic income policies, in which the administrative factor is just one of several components.
Lindsay lives in Seaford, on the South Coast of England, where he serves as Liberal Democrat Town Councillor for the Seaford South ward.
In his spare time, Lindsay trains for and runs marathons.
Secretary:
Fabienne Hansen
Fabienne Hansen is a PhD student in social anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She is also associated with Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niterói, Brazil, where she looks at the integration of UBI within municipal social policies in Brazil. Generally, Fabienne is interested in the effects basic income could have on everyday livelihoods as well as the shaping of policyscapes that stand behind policy decisions. She was elected BIEN Secretary in 2024.
UN Liaison:
Diana Bashur
After serving three years as BIEN Secretary, Diana will focus her work within BIEN on expanding BIEN’s partnerships with United Nations entities, presenting basic income as a complement to international development and peacebuilding efforts. This builds on BIEN’s collaboration with UNDP, the Office of the UN Secretary-General, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office and UNIDO, which Diana has led since 2021.
Diana is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna researching basic income’s potential for social cohesion. In the past, she has worked for the United Nations and the French Development Agency in Damascus, New York and Vienna. Diana was elected BIEN UN Liaison in August 2024.
Social Media Manager:
James Grant
James has been contributing to BIEN’s online presence since 2018, becoming the Social Media Manager for the organisation in 2021. He studied International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London, and currently works in the tech sector.
Public Outreach:
Julio Linares
Julio Linares is an economic anthropologist from Guatemala. He holds an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MA in Applied Economics and Social Development from National ChengChi University (國立政治大學) in Taipei, Taiwan. His research focus dwells on the relationship between money, direct democracy and unconditional basic income. Julio is currently based in Berlin, Germany, where he explores these topics in practice with the Circles UBI project. Julio is currently serving his second term as Public Outreach for BIEN. He speaks Chinese, English, Spanish, German and a bit of Hungarian.
Research Coordinator:
Jurgen De Wispelaere
Jurgen De Wispelaere is a political theorist turned public policy scholar, specialising in the political economy of basic income. He has published extensively on the politics of basic income, including most recently on basic income and crisis politics, basic income as national-regional-local policy, and the political origin story of basic income in Maricá (Brazil) and its diffusion across Rio de Janeiro state. He is the co-editor of four volumes as well as the Founding Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Basic Income Studies. Jurgen was a member of the BIEN EC in 2002-2004 and co-organised the BIEN Congresses in Montreal (2014) and Tampere (2018). He is currently leading the UBIdata Project for BIEN.
Volunteer Coordinator:
Lee Seng Kiat
Prior to his career in architecture and project management, Seng Kiat coordinated volunteers as polling and counting agents nationwide to observe the momentous 2018 Malaysian General Election. Since moving from Kuala Lumpur to London, Seng Kiat volunteered for BIEN before serving as Volunteer Coordinator. Seng Kiat has advocated for Basic Income from 2019 and resonates with BIEN’s role in fostering discussions over Basic Income. He is also fluent in Malay and Mandarin. Seng Kiat was elected BIEN’s Volunteer Coordinator in August 2024.
Hubs Supervisor:
Dr. Neil Howard
Dr. Neil Howard is Reader in International Development at the University of Bath, where he leads UBI Bath, the UK’s first centre of basic income scholarship. He is an anthropologist of development turned social protection scholar. His research investigates the governance of exploitative labour practices, as targeted for eradication by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also explores innovative forms of labour and social protection, focusing on Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) combined with participatory community organizing. Neil co-led two international policy experiments trialling this combination in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Hyderabad, India. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the Basic Income Earth Network.
Affiliates Coordinator:
Olaf Ostertag
Olaf Michael Ostertagis based in Berlin, Germany, and has been a grassroots activist for Basic Income since 2004. He co-founded the “BAG GE” (Basic Income Working Group) within the political party DIE LINKE (“The left”), together with Katja Kipping, Ronald Blaschke, Stefan Wolf and others. This action committee was successful in convincing a majority of this party’s membership to adopt Basic Income as a political demand until recently.
His first professional education was actor’s training, at Valentin Plátáreanu’s studio. Olaf wrote over two dozen satirical plays for ensemble casts and stand-up comedy shows, the latest of which he is currently performing in Berlin. Olaf worked briefly as a journalist and as office manager for members of parliament, on state and national levels.
In 2017, he began training as a tax accountant and has worked at the same consultancy firm consecutively since 2018. He currently chairs two charities in Berlin: A local history association and an artist’s social club.
As Affiliates Coordinator, he aims for collecting the knowledge, experience and objectives from all over the world, and hopes to be able to foster exchange and inspiring debates between BI activists from different backgrounds. He encourages to reach out to him to induce conversations: olaf [(at)] basicincome.org
News Service Editor:
Peter Knight
Peter Knight joined BIEN in 2017. He is a PhD (Stanford University) economist and strategic analyst with broad international experience in digital transformation, e-development, e-government, distance education, electronic media, telecommunications reform, international banking, foundation work, and teaching. Peter is devoted to leveraging information and communication technologies to accelerate social, economic and political development. He currently focuses on promoting thought, communication, and action across three areas: sufficiency, sustainability, and innovation; he is Coordinator of the Sufficiency4Sustainability Network.
Features Editor:
Tyler Prochazka
Tyler Prochazka is the opinion editor for BIEN. He is the chairman of UBI Taiwan and a PhD student at National Chengchi University.
Bank account trustees (not members of the Executive Committee): Jacob Eliot, Anne Miller, Simon Duffy, Reinhard Huss
Chair of the International Advisory Board: Philippe Van Parijs
Tasks related to the different posts
The task of the EC
BIEN’s purpose is: To educate the general public about Basic Income, that is, a periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement; to serve as a link between the individuals and groups committed to, or interested in, Basic Income; to stimulate and disseminate research about Basic Income; and to foster informed public discussion on Basic Income throughout the world.
The task of the EC is to ensure that BIEN fulfils its constitutional purpose and to set policy to that end.
General duties of EC members
- To attend EC meetings, and if not attending to send apologies. At least 50 % of meetings must be attended between one General Assembly and the next
- To fulfil and develop the tasks related to the post to which you were elected
- To work with any working group(s) to which you are allocated in order to fulfil the tasks allocated to the group(s) by the EC
Individual duties
Chair
The role of the Chair is to collectively develop a vision, mission and long-term strategy for BIEN. In all aspects the Chair should work closely and in consultation with the Deputy Chair.
She / he should seek new partnerships globally and develop meaningful collaborations with people and organizations that will further the strategic objectives of BIEN in terms of strengthening research about Basic Income, its dissemination worldwide in as many languages as possible so that basic income discussion becomes rigorous and robust. In addition to these strategic aspects of the role, Chair in consultation with the Deputy Chair and the EC members should fulfil the following tasks:
- To chair meetings of the EC and the General Assembly
- To propose policy and initiatives for BIEN and to lead them
- To ensure that decisions made by the EC conform to BIEN’s purpose
- To take any urgent decisions required between EC meetings
- To represent BIEN to other organizations and individuals
- To liaise with the congress Local Organizing Committees over the content of congresses
- To submit an annual report to the General Assembly
- To raise funds for BIEN and make it financially sustainable
- To encourage new organizations to affiliate to BIEN, and work for growth of membership
Deputy Chair
- To fulfil all of the functions of the Chair whenever the Chair is absent
- To fulfil any of the tasks of the Chair by mutual agreement
- To support and help the chair in proposing policy goals and initiatives for BIEN and to assist with leading them
Secretary
- In consultation with the treasurer, to keep an up to date register of BIEN members and of members of the EC
- To take minutes of EC and GA meetings
- In consultation with the Chair, to prepare meeting agendas
- To prepare papers required by the EC
- To send agendas, minutes and other papers to EC members before EC meetings and to BIEN members before meetings of the GA
- To receive correspondence and ensure that it is acted on
- To undertake correspondence as required by decisions of EC and GA meetings
- To ensure that all requirements of registration by the UK’s Charity Commission are met
- To administer elections, including proposing tellers to the EC
Treasurer
- To keep income and expenditure accounts along with evidence of income and expenditure
- To make payments as agreed by the EC
- To submit regular financial reports to EC meetings
- To prepare annual accounts
- To liaise with the auditor over auditing of the accounts
- To prepare budgets if asked to do so by the EC
- To manage the bank and other accounts
- To propose financial rules to the EC
Hubs Supervisor
The Hubs Project involves building regional BIEN hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and professionalising BIEN’s day-to-day activities. The project aims to strengthen the basic income ecosystem and BIEN’s role in it.
- Regular oversight of the Hubs project
- Meeting with BIEN coordinator and regional hubs managers to check progress and course correct
- Strategic support to coordinator and regional hubs managers
- Reporting to the BIEN EC about project progress
- Connecting with partners and donors around the project.
News Service Editor
- In consultation and cooperation with the EC and Chair to develop news policy
- To oversee BI News posts on the website
- To issue monthly BIEN Bulletin emails
- To supervise the work of the volunteers allocated to the news service
- To ensure that guidelines agreed by the EC are adhered to by volunteers
Social Media Manager
- In consultation and cooperation with the EC, Chair and News Editor to develop social media policy
- To oversee social media channels
- To supervise the work of the volunteers allocated to social media
- To ensure that guidelines agreed by the EC are adhered to by volunteers
Affiliate and Public Outreach
- To maintain an up to date register of affiliated organizations and their contact details
- To liaise between affiliated organizations and the EC
- To convene meetings of representatives of affiliated organizations at and between congresses
- To oversee BIEN’s relationships with international and other organizations in consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC
- To assist with convening meetings between BIEN and other organizations both at congresses and on other occasions in consultation with the Chair and Congress local organizing committees
Volunteer Coordinator
- To oversee the recruitment, allocation and training of volunteers
- In consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC to liaise with volunteers and to manage volunteer policy
Research Coordinator
- To develop research policy and initiatives in consultation with EC and Chair
- To review and update information related to research pages on the BIEN website
- To assist and suggest measures to promote quality of research at BIEN congresses
- To serve as point of contact for outside research-related organizations and activities
- To facilitate research initiatives in collaboration with external research and community partners
- To engage in exploring strategic funding options for basic income research initiatives
Congress Organiser (appointed by the EC and the Local Organizing Committee)
- To co-ordinate the Local Organising Committee (LOC) that plans the congress
- To liaise between the EC and the LOC by attending EC meetings and in other ways
Website Manager
- To manage the website and liaise with its other users in consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC
Bank account trustees
- To facilitate the relationship between BIEN and the Charity Commission
- To facilitate the efficient management of the bank account
