Bank account name: The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)
Bank and bank address: CAF Bank Ltd, 25 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent ME19 4JQ, United Kingdom
IBAN number: GB19CAFB40524000031789
Swift number: CAFBGB21XXX
Account number: 00031789
Sort code: 405240
And there are two options for membership:
To become a life member, pay a single fee of 90 British pounds.
To become an annual member, decide on your annual fee (see the suggestions below) and set up a standing order, either to Paypal or to the bank account.
Suggested scale:
Annual Income
Membership fee
0-£20,000
£10 per year
£20,000-£40,000
£20 per year
£40,000-£60,000
£30 per year
£60,000-£80,000
£40 per year
More than £80,000
£50 per year
For any questions related to BIEN’s financial affairs, please contact the treasurer, Dr. Malcolm Torry, at treasurer@basicincome.org
All members have the right to vote at BIEN’s General Assembly meetings, to stand for election to the Executive Committee, and to vote for the Executive Committee.
Please note that membership takes effect 22 days after the application for membership has been sent and a fee has been paid, and only sooner than that if the Executive Committee makes such a decision in a particular case (see paragraph 9, 1, b of the constitution). No new memberships will be approved either at the General Assembly or during the week before it.
B(I)ENefactors
The donation level at which a person becomes a new B(I)ENfactor is £360. If they wish, B(I)ENefactors’ names are listed on the website, but they have no special role in BIEN.
B(I)ENefactors
Stephen Stillwell (US), Víctor Gómez Frías (ES), Joel Handler (US), Philippe Van Parijs (BE), Helmut Pelzer (DE), Guy Standing (UK), Eduardo Suplicy (BR), Robert van der Veen (NL), Richard Caputo (US), Rolf Kuettel (CH), Jeanne Hrdina (CH), Wolf D. Aichberger (AT), Einkommen ist ein Bürgerrecht (DE), Ahn Hyo Sang (KR), Al Sheahen (US), Daniel Schmidt (DE), Gunmin Yi (KR), Cho Sung Hee (KR), Adriaan Planken (NL), Steven Grimm (US), Julius Nadas (US), Luc Gosselin (CA), Jon Altman (AU), Annika Lillemets (SE), Aktive Arbeitslose Österreich (AT), Robin Ketelaars (NL), Neil Howard (IT), Amanda Renslow (US), Ryan Renslow (US), Bruno Gantelet (FR), Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu (TR), Cecilia Soto (MX) and Nicholas Rodie (AU), Marcelo Lessa (BR), Alessandro Jochem (BR)
A General Assembly of BIEN members is held once a year, and constitutes the Annual General Meeting of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in the United Kingdom.
2020
Because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Charity Commission agreed that charity governing bodies could decide not to hold Annual General Meetings during 2020. As the 2020 BIEN congress had been cancelled, the Executive Committee decided not to hold a General Assembly during 2020, but instead to fulfil as many of the normal functions as possible by postal ballot, with results to be announced on the date on which the General Assembly would have been held.
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 focusing on basic income’s potential for social cohesion in the Global South. Her past professional experience includes working for international organisations in Damascus, New York and Vienna. Diana is fluent in Arabic, English, French and German. 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, focused specifically on Virtual Reality technology.
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 is currently a Visiting Professor at the Götz Werner Chair of Economic Policy & Constitutional Theory, University of Freiburg, as well as an Associate Professor (Docent) in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tampere University. He has published extensively on the politics of basic income and is the co-editor of four volumes as well as the Founding Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Basic Income Studies. Jurgen has been a member of the BIEN EC in 2002-2004 and also co-organised the BIEN Congresses in Montreal (2014) and Tampere (2018).
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
Neil is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath. His research focusses on the governance of exploitative and so-called ‘unfree’ labour and in particular the various forms of it targeted for eradication by the Sustainable Development Goals. He currently co-leads a pilot in India trialling UBI and participatory action research as potential policy responses to indecent or exploitative work in Hyderabad, India. Neil is also a founder and editor of the Beyond Trafficking and Slavery platform publishing at openDemocracy.net.
Affiliates Coordinator: Olaf Ostertag
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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
Because the 2020 BIEN congress has been cancelled because the of the coronavirus crisis, the General Assembly has also been cancelled: an eventuality permitted by the UK’s Charity Commission for this year only.
The Executive Committee has passed a resolution to organise as postal ballots as many as possible of the votes that would have taken place at the General Assembly. Therefore elections for vacant Executive Committee posts will take place only by post.
Rules for the election
In order to stand as a candidate, the individual will need to have been a BIEN member for at least a year, will need to say to which post they wish to be elected, and will need to send a picture (suitable for placing on a website) and a personal statement, of a minimum of 200 and a maximum of 500 words, saying why they wish to be elected to that post, mentioning their qualifications and experience relevant to the post, and ideas they have about filling it. Personal statements and photographs should be sent by email to the Secretary of BIEN at bien@basicincome.org, and to the General Manager, at generalmanager@basicincome.org.
The window of time to stand for election opens on the 23rd June and closes on the 23rd August. Candidates are encouraged to notify the Secretary and General Manager by the 23rd July of their intention to stand. Statements and photographs of candidates will be placed on this website from the 30th July onwards.
Enquiries about positions can be made informally to the Chair, Louise Haagh, on louise.haagh@york.ac.uk.
The timetable for the election will be as follows
Sunday 23rd August: final day for receipt of statements of intention to stand, personal statements, and photographs.
Sunday 30th August at the latest: Ballot papers will be sent by email to every BIEN member.
Wednesday 23rd September: Final date for receipt of completed ballot papers.
Wednesday 30th September at the latest: Announcement of election results.
The following posts will be elected
Executive Committee post
Candidates
Chair
Sarath Davala
Vice chair
Hilde Latour
News editor
Barb Jacobson
Features editor
Tyler Prochazka
Academic editor/research
Toru Yamamori
Bank account trustee *
Anne Miller
Bank account trustee *
Jake Eliot
Chair of the International Advisory Board
Philippe Van Parijs
* Bank account trustees must be permanent legal residents of the UK. Bank account trustees do not attend Executive Committee meetings. It would be helpful if the current two bank account trustees could be re-elected
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