WHO WE ARE
The Barcelona Time Use Initiative for a Healthy Society (BTUI) is the global initiative promoting time policies and the right to time. It is a non-profit organisation operating world-wide, with its headquarters in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Due to its history, it has a special focus on the European context, but is currently working towards implementing time policies in new regions, such as Latin America. Its main objective is to encourage a public discussion on the different uses of time. By doing so, the aim is to improve social time organisation as a key element for progress — it is essential for a society, its companies, and its organisations. In fact, improving the way time is organised can have direct effects on health, equality, efficiency, sustainability, and democracy.
The Initiative continues with the legacy from the work of several non-profit, like-minded organisations. A direct link can be traced with 2017’s Catalan Initiative for Schedules Reform, which succeeded in involving more than 100 regional organisations from all sectors —including labour unions and employers’ organisations— in order for Catalan schedules to be rethought. In 2019, the Initiative was internationalised in order to connect knowledge creation and acquired experiences in reforming schedules in the region with the world. The aim was to create a working network with global experts and main public institutions and private actors that were also involved in improving time use.
TIME EXPERTS
The BTUI works with a global set of experts, who aim to advising the organisation in its multiple projects. As time is a cross-sectoral theme, it needs to be dealt with interdisciplinarity. Due to multi-level policies that need to be implemented, such experts also represent a diversity of regional and national backgrounds.
STAFF
The BTUI has a committed, full-time staff working in its different projects. Due to the net methodology of the Initiative, there are also some people with different backgrounds that work with specific projects due to their field of expertise.