Kalina Magdzinska & Rebecca Klant, 11 November 2024
The report provides an overview of the conference highlighting the exploration of complementary currencies and monetary innovation and provides information on the RAMICS General Assembly. The guiding theme, The Future of Money – Democracy, Regionality, and Inclusion, served as a framework for discussing the evolving landscape of alternative monetary systems. This report also highlights the Climate Bonus presentation and key points from the RAMICS General Assembly.
Rebecca Klant, Niambi Njoroge, Kalina Magdzinska (from left to right)
Every two years, the Research Association on Monetary Innovation and Community and Complementary Currency Systems (RAMICS) hosts a conference bringing together experts, researchers, and practitioners to explore ideas, solutions, and innovations addressing current monetary challenges. RAMICS is a global research organisation focused on complementary currencies, a field of growing significance for promoting sustainability, social inclusion, and regional resilience.
More than 50 experts and practitioners in complementary currencies from around the world gathered at the RAMICS 2024 conference in Rome.
After the 2022 conference in Sofia, Bulgaria (see our report here: Report: 6th International Research Conference on Monetary Diversity: Sofia, Oct 2022 – Monneta), this year’s event took place in the historic city of Rome, Italy, welcoming participants from around the world. The conference fostered exchange of expertise and dialogue on recent developments and forward-looking trends. The guiding theme was The Future of Money: Democracy, Localism, and Inclusion.
This year’s programme covered a wide range of topics and offered insights into the diverse forms of monetary innovation worldwide. For example, studies on local currency systems as well as new digital complementary currencies, which are gaining importance in both urban and rural regions, were presented. The role of alternative currencies as tools for promoting social inclusion and economic resilience was also the subject of several presentations. One of them was the Hudson Valley Current, a regional complementary currency in the New York State. It highlighted how local monetary system can strengthen community-oriented economies and enhance regional economic resistance by reducing dependency on external financial flows.
Cash notes of the Hudson Valley Current, a local complementary currency in the New York State
Furthermore, controversial debates were held in particular on the topic of tokenisation and cryptocurrency. While some attendees saw potential for democratisation in blockchain technologies for modern complementary currencies, others argued that little added value was produced in pilot projects. Everyone agreed on one point: We still need space and time after RAMICS 2024 to discuss the various arguments in sufficient detail. Even after the congress, it will still be worth looking at the programme.
Kalina Magdzinska and Rebecca Klant, both representatives of monneta, presented their practical paper they have been working on with Christian Gelleri over the past few months: Success Factors and Challenges of the Climate Bonus Flensburg: A Real-World Lab Analysis. The work examined the Climate Bonus project in the Flensburg region, analysing its first year of operation (Klimabonus Website). The study focused on the success factors and challenges encountered since the introduction of the Climate Bonus in Flensburg – a region without an existing complementary currency system. Both internal experiences of the operational team and external perspectives from various cooperation partners were taken into account and presented in a comprehensive SWOT analysis. This analysis served as the basis for identifying the potential and challenges of a sustainable complementary currency system at local level.
RAMICS Members Meeting
- The General Assembly was held with over 30 participants.
- Instead of the newsletter, it was decided to concentrate on the blog posts instead given the amount of work involved in meeting the deadlines. Subscribers will receive an email notification for each blog post.
- Membership numbers have developed well, particularly following the conference in Rome.
- Jerome Blanc told us about the financial situation of RAMICS and concluded: not bad, but fragile and very dependent on whether a conference takes place or not. The costs incurred mainly relate to the website, the bank account and the Best Paper Award.
- On the subject of the CC-Literature Databank, it was suggested that the scope of the bibliography should be limited to complementary currencies that have at least certain restrictions in terms of convertibility (the exchange fee of 5%, as we know it from the Climate Bonus or Chiemgauer, is sufficient for him as a restriction). With the boom in publications on complementary currencies, we would otherwise be unlikely to achieve the goal of getting our bibliography close to the scope with the resources available. One suggestion from the audience was to make the work more efficient by using an AI for the bibliography. People were open to this idea, although it would require a more expertise in the team.
- Regarding the International Journal of Community Currency Research (IJCCR), Jens Martignoni reported on the challenges facing the journal, which are related to the following factors:
- Dependence on the RAMICS congresses
- Delayed progress on the index issue
- costs
- Problems with the platform
- Option to archive the journal and start a new one
- New name
- Another current challenge: to bring the many good, convincing papers that have now been submitted to a status that makes them publishable in other journals.