Founded in 1986 as Basic Income European Network, BIEN expanded its scope from Europe to the Earth in 2004. It aims to serve as a link between individuals and groups committed to, or interested in, basic income and to foster informed discussion on this topic around the world.
Members of BIEN include academics, students and social policy practitioners as well as people actively engaged in political, social and religious organisations.
To actively foster this debate, BIEN publishes a newsletter which provides an up-to-date and comprehensive international overview on relevant events and publications. It organises biennial BIEN-congresses where people from more than twenty countries have met to report and discuss basic income and related proposals in connection with a broad spectrum of themes, such as unemployment, European integration, poverty, development, changing patterns of work career and family life, and principles of social justice.
The European Citizens Initiative for Basic Income in 2013, which gave rise to the formation of UBIE in 2014, was in large part initiated by European members of BIEN. UBIE became an affiliate of BIEN at their congress in Montreal June 2014. We work with BIEN and BIEN members regularly several common projects.