Council Meeting Minutes (September 2014)

16^th September 2014

In attendance:

• Kate Bayliss
• Ben Fine
• Abelardo Mariña Flores
• Susan Newman
• Niels Hahn
• Lucia Pradella
• Alfredo Saad Filho
• Simon Mohun

Apologies: Dimitris Milonakis

Also present: Pietro Masina

 1. Election Results

BF read out the election results. According to the Constitution, two further members can be co-opted who will not have voting rights.

 2. Finances, bank account and registration

There is no change in the finances of IIPPE but now there are elected officers the next step is to formally register the constitution and open a bank account. KB to move this forward.

It was agreed that the IIPPE institutional address would be at SOAS.

 3. Feedback on Naples conference organization

ASF said that the organization of the conference was made more difficult by not having a clear line of reporting to IIPPE. This should be easier in future now that the IIPPE structure has been formalized. It was recommended that someone from the IIPPE Council should be on the conference organizing committee in future.

4. 2016 IIPPE conference

SN said that UWE might be interested although we may want to avoid having UK-based conferences in two consecutive years.

There was some reluctance in having a joint conference for various reasons, especially problem of size. It was suggested that joint conference would have to be suitably timed, and might be investigated with a group of potential parties with EAEPE not necessarily the front runner.

SM – will investigate through Philip Arestis possibility with collaboration for conference in the Basque region.

LP to investigate collaboration with Critical Political Economy Network (?).

AMF is planning to build up support for IIPPE in Mexico so that maybe in 4 or 5 years, the Conference and/ or workshops could be held there.

5. Working Groups

SN suggested setting up a formal process for establishing WGs but it was agreed that current system was fine. Some dormant WGs have been taken off the group list.

6. Political Economy Training Workshop

Another successful training workshop was held the day before the Naples conference organized by Simon Mohun, Elisa Van Wayenberge and Serap Seritas. The next workshop is scheduled for the day before the HM conference in November.One was recently held in Leeds. SM would like to spread out of London but it is cheap and convenient to hold these at SOAS.

The workshops have been supported financially by grants from the Amiel and Melburn Trust. More funding is needed to support more workshops.

7. IIPPE book series

Not much going on here. SN pointed out that publishing a book with Pluto did not count for much in research points in some UK institutions and this is a deterrent for young researchers.

8. Web site

Florian Schaeffer is planning to investigate enriching the web page and look at other social media (Twitter?).

9. Networking

Ewa Kawowski has been appointed to liaise with other heterodox economics organisations. NH suggested making a concerted effort to make contact with activist groups. Others had the view these connections evolved from personal and specific contacts rather than a formal targeting programme.

10. Mailing list

It was agreed that the IIPPE email list would be used for IIPPE correspondence only and not for any other purpose or organisation.

NH to liaise with Heesang (and copy BF) about consolidating the conference email list with the wider email list, and creating a specific list for paid up IIPPE members.

11. Rethinking economics movement

IIPPE wants to make contact with this movement. It was agreed that Jo Michell would be co-opted as a council member to move this forward. BF to contact Jo.

12. Newsletter

Susan congratulated on continual production of NL, with help from Florian and Hannah anticipated.

13. Next meeting

There is no constitutional requirement for specific meeting dates but the next meeting is likely to be around the time of HM conference in November 2014.