The Congress | AUGUST 19-22
Basic Income and the Polycrisis: The Key to Unlocking the Puzzle
*In Person and Virtual Conference
The BIEN Congress will officially open on August 20. We are also happy to welcome all Congress participants to a half-day, pre-congress session the afternoon of August 19 focused on Canada.
We invite international visitors to Canada to check out travel information fairly soon as the process for some may take time and there are new, recent requirements.
The 2026 Congress is being held as the early decades of the twenty-first century are defined by a polycrisis: the causal entanglement of multiple, overlapping crises. These pressures span interconnected systems, including the natural environment (climate disruption), the economy (inflation, unaffordability, widening income and wealth inequality, and persistent poverty), political institutions (erosion of public trust, democratic strain, and the rise of exclusionary populism and authoritarian governments), and the rights-based international order. Together, they expose the limits of fragmented welfare systems that respond to risks in isolation rather than as cumulative and systemic challenges. In this context, basic income is gaining renewed attention not only as an anti-poverty measure, but as a foundational policy for strengthening social inclusion and solidarity.
This Congress theme positions basic income as a unifying response to the polycrisis—one that cuts across policy silos and reconnects income security to broader questions of justice, sustainability, and democratic capacity. The theme invites critical examination of basic income as part of a renewed social contract capable of countering precarity, fragmentation, and exclusion in complex, interdependent systems.
Ways to Participate
Organizers of the Congress are keen to ensure a balance between quality, depth, and breadth of participation. We want to facilitate the unparalleled participation that most commonly emerges from sharing space and time in person, with some virtual options, recognizing that travelling is not always possible or desirable.
You’ll soon see a call for proposals to create an amazing program to advance knowledge, action, and connection. We’ll be inviting theoretical and empirical contributions, including those that may challenge basic income ideas or particular ways of thinking about it, and contributions that reflect the experience of people on the front lines of the polycrisis.
There will be many more details to come over the next weeks and months. We are excited to get started and to see you in Toronto.
_ABOUT BIEN
What is BIEN?
The Basic Income Earth Network is a network of academics and activists interested in the idea of basic income. It serves as a link between individuals and groups committed to or interested in basic income, and fosters informed discussion on this topic throughout the world. BIEN’s website defines a basic income as “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.”