Report of Economics and the Commons Conference 2013

The 2013 ECC conference in Berlin, sponsored so generously by the Heinrich Boell foundation was a thought-provoking, energizing event! 

David Bollier of the Commons Strategy group summarised his impressions in this report:

Dear Friends of the Commons,

We hope that you are still feasting on the knowledge and insights that you picked up at the Economics and the Commons Conference in Berlin!  If not, we are pleased to announce the release of an 80-page report / summary of the conference that you can download as a pdf file here:  http://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/ecc_report_final.pdf  The report consists of abbreviated versions of all of the ten keynote talks; brief summaries of the stream discussions; short overviews of each of the side events (with contact information for the hosts); a guide to the wiki resources on commons and economics; and an account of the Francophone network of commoners.

Let us also call your attention to the remarkable collection of video interviews that Remix the Commons shot at the ECC.  The videos -- recently posted at the Remix website, http://www.remixthecommons.org/en -- provide another vivid perspective on the conference.  They include dozens of commoners giving their definitions of the commons and participating in roundtable interviews.  The videos will be posted on the Remix playlists progressively as they are finalized. 

At the end of the ECC Report, the Commons Strategies Group offers some final reflections on the event’s significance for the commons movement.  We look back at the 2010 International Commons Conference and consider some of the ways in which our efforts have matured, and some of the challenges that we face in the years ahead.

Please feel free to share this report with friends and colleagues, or the post it on your websites.  We hope that this synthesis of the ECC will refresh your memory of some of the powerful statements and themes presented there.  May it also stimulate the thinking of those who could not attend

Please be aware that several websites will continue to act as repositories for content generated by the ECC:. 

·   The ECC webpages maintained by the Böll Foundation:  http://www.boell.de/en/economics-and-commons  
·   The Communications Platform that was used at the ECC: http://commonsandeconomics.org
·   The commons and economics webpages on the P2P Foundation wiki:  See links on p. 73 of the ECC report.

Again, we wish to thank everyone for helping to make the ECC such a thought-provoking, energizing event!  We hope that the ECC is only the beginning of many deeper, more creative collaborations in the future.


David Bollier, Silke Helfrich, Michel Bauwens, Commons Strategies Group
Barbara Unmüssig and Heike Löschmann, Heinrich Böll Foundation
Nicolas Krausz, Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation
Alain Ambrosi and Frédéric Sultan, Remix the Commons