CULTURE MATTERS: Does Scotland need a basic income for artists?

Culture Matters is a collaborative event series brought to you by the new Cultural Industries subject area of University of Glasgow, and Creative Glasgow.

Cultural Industries was created in 2025 to bring together the University’s expertise across a broad range of cultural, arts and media industries. The teaching and research of this subject area is national and international, theoretical and applied – and focussed on ways of supporting a thriving, sustainable and socially-just cultural sector. Creative Glasgow also launched in 2025 as a new membership organisation that works to connect, champion and celebrate creative practitioners across the Glasgow City Region.

Together this new partnership creates space for critical conversations on some of the most pressing issues facing the creative and cultural sectors and those that work in them. Drawing on academic, sector, and policy perspectives, these free evening events aim to be a lively and timely opportunity for shared dialogue and learning for creative practitioners, cultural workers, academics, and students alike.

____

Running Order

5.45pm Drinks & Networking on Arrival

6.00pm Welcome and Introductions from Head of Cultural Industries Subject, Prof. Mark Banks

6.15pm Chaired Discussion

7.15pm Audience Q&A

7.30pm End

____

CULTURE MATTERS: Does Scotland need a basic income for artists?

In the third event in this series we’re discussing the rising interest in Scotland for a basic income for artists.

Following Ireland’s decision to make their pilot BIA scheme a permanent policy commitment, and the news of its economic return, there have been mounting calls to support the development of an equivalent policy in Scotland.

For this discussion we’ll be chaired by Mark Banks, professor of Creative Economy and Head of Cultural Industries at University of Glasgow. We’ll be joined by panellists Kate Oakley, Professor of Cultural Policy, Paraic Mc Quaid, Lecturer in Cultural Policy at Institute for Art, Design & Technology, Dublin, Cleo Goodman, founder of Basic Income Conversations, LJ Findlay-Walsh, Artistic Director, Take Me Somewhere, and Briana Pegado, Former Chair of the Fair Work Taskforce for Scotland.

Together we’ll be exploring:

• Why are calls for a basic income for artists in Scotland mounting?

• Why are artists a focal group for this form of financial support?

• What relationship does basic income for artists have with broader calls for Universal Basic Income?

• What possible benefits are imagined to emerge from this policy if implemented?

• What other examples of basic income for artists schemes from other contents can tell us about their impact and effects?

• Why might basic income for artists not be the fix for precarity and exploitation in the arts we’re hoping for?

___

Access

Creative Glasgow and University of Glasgow are committed to creative a welcoming, safe and accessible environment for all our events.

This event series takes place in the Advanced Research Centre at University of Glasgow. The events take place on the ground floor, and there is level access throughout.

Accessibility details are outlined here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/arc/accessibility/

Contact details/directions here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/arc/contact/

Please note any access or support needs not covered above and we’ll be in touch if we need any further information to accommodate you.

____

Panellists

Cleo Goodman

https://basicincomeconversation.org/#/

https://www.instagram.com/basicincomeforartistsscot

Cleo Co-Founded Basic Income Conversation, a project instigating conversations about how a basic income would change things for people in the UK. Cleo’s led research projects assessing the social impact of interventions similar to a basic income, numerous campaign actions and community consultations that have designed basic income pilots for care-experienced young people with Camden Council, local communities and farmers. Cleo is part of the team launching the UK’s first basic income demonstration this year. She is currently leading the Basic Income for Artists in Scotland project and working as a self-employed consultant across political strategy, facilitation and research.

LJ Findlay-Walsh, Artistic Director, Take Me Somewhere

LJ Findlay-Walsh (She/her) is Artistic Director of Take Me Somewhere, an internationalcontemporary performance festival and sector support organisation in Glasgow. She was Senior Curator of Performance at Scotland’s largest contemporary arts venue, Tramway from 2017-2026, working on year-round activity that includes the country’s city-wide biennial dance festival, DIG (Dance International Glasgow).

Previous roles include Executive Producer of Mischief La-Bas and Senior Producer at the Arches arts venue in Glasgow, where she worked for over a decade. While in post at the Arches, she aided the curation and delivery of international performance festival Behaviourand emergent artist festival Arches Live. She has worked as co-curator of the Plateaux Live Art Festival (Frankfurt, Germany). She was awarded an ISPA fellowship (International Society of the Performing Arts) in 2018. She has held various advisory and curatorial roles with organisations such as the Federation of Scottish Theatre, The Canada Council, Erlangen Festival (Germany), OGR (Turin, Italy). She was part of the European consortium - Festivals of the Future and Imaging Futures. She is the Co-Chair of the UK Festival Director's Network and sits on the board of live art festival Buzzcut, Glasgow.

https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/abi-summary-of-findings

Briana Pegado, Freelance Entrepreneur, Artist, Author & Former Chair of the Fair Work Taskforce

'Briana Pegado is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and is an award-winning social entrepreneur, artist, activist, and author. With nearly a decade's experience as a senior manager in the creative industries in Scotland - part roles include Director of Creative Edinburgh, Co-Director of We Are Here Scotland CIC, and Creative Director of Fringe of Colour Films. She is an anti-racism, anti-oppression, governance and strategy consultant in the creative industries.

She was Chair of the Scottish Government’s Independent Culture Fair Work Taskforce, appointed by the Cabinet Minister for Culture to create recommendations for the implementation of Fair Work in the culture sector. This included the design of a Fair Work Charter for the entire cultural sector and creative industries in Scotland in line with the Scottish Government’s ambition to be a Fair Work Nation by 2030.

She has a Master of Arts with Honours in Sustainable Development from the University of Edinburgh and studied for an MBA at the University of Arts London Central Saint Martins College of Art in 2017.

She currently works for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Creative Enterprise Development Office (CEDO) as a Career Advisor supporting students and graduates and the critical friend for NEUK Collective’s creative leadership development programme for neurodivergent artists Spectra. Recent pieces of work have included designing a learning resource for the Scottish Artists Union (SAU) on Anti-Oppression in the arts using the workers’ inquiry method with funding from the Scottish Government’s United Workplaces Fund provided by the STUC and designing an anti-racism training induction module for Rape Crisis Scotland’s Early Prevention Team working in schools across the country.

Briana published her first book Make Good Trouble: A Guide to the Energetics of Disruption with Watkins Publishing in April 2024.'

Paraic McQuaid, Lecturer, IADT

Cultural Trends Article on BIA / Kulturpunkt article

Paraic Mc Quaid is a lecturer and researcher in cultural policy in IADT, Dublin. He is an expert author for the Compendium of Cultural Policies since 2017. Paraic has taken a research interest in the Basic Income for Artists (BIA) since its inception. In 2024 he has presented papers on Basic Income for Arts at the Basic Income Earth Network conference in Bath University, and the Conference of the Compendium of Cultural Policies in Podgorica University. In July 2025 his co-authored article with Satu Teppo was published Cultural Trends International Journal. He gave an expert talk on BIA in IRMO, Zagreb and press interviews on BIA for Kulturpunkt, Croatia, and LePresse Canada.

Kate Oakley, Professor of Cultural policy

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/cca/staff/kateoakley/

Kate Oakley is Professor of Cultural Policy at the School of Culture & Creative Arts, University of Glasgow. She was previously Director of Research at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, Head of the Centre for Cultural Policy and Management at City University, London and a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London.

Her research interests include the politics of cultural policy, labour in the cultural industries, and inequality. She came into academia following careers as a journalist, market researcher and civil servant and for 15 years she ran a successful consultancy and research business in the cultural sectors.