About us

"Morals and manners for the new millennium...."

The Social Affairs Unit addresses social, economic and cultural issues with an emphasis on the value of personal responsibility. We research, challenge and debate issues from welfare to warfare, always seeking to draw out the role of the individual's obligations.

The SAU is a charity. This means that its role and ambitions are wholly unpolitical. So we don't toe or promote any party line. More than that, we have no "corporate" party line of any kind of our own. We don't "do" propaganda, but argument. The people who write our papers come from many backgrounds and disciplines. They are united in being interested in the value of personal responsibility to individuals and societies, but very diverse in their approaches.

The SAU is forward-looking. It does not favour the historic over the modern, nor the well-established over the innovative, nor the enduring over the fashionable, nor the traditional over the progressive.

Indeed, many SAU supporters are inclined to believe that the generation which fought the Second World War were rather too keen on social engineering over the goals of personal responsibility. That cherished tradition is now being reconsidered by people of every political party and none. People now young are likely to be reinventing the idea of welfare and we are interested to interrogate that process. Similarly, there is a long tradition of English disdain for entrepreneurship and affluence: that is now being challenged from all sides. The SAU is interested to investigate why the English have these mental habits, and what - if anything - we ought to do about them.

How we do this

The Social Affairs Unit identifies research with a potential to inform public policy and translates it from academic discourse into public debate. The ideas it promotes come largely from historians, sociologists and philosophers but also medical doctors and hard scientists.

Its books and reports are widely and prominently covered in the media. Value of media coverage for one year is assessed at £1,416,126. (Brad/MDLM)

The SAU was founded in 1980, with Professor Julius Gould as Chairman, Dr Digby Anderson as Director. Though always an independent institute, it was started with active encouragement from the Institute of Economic Affairs. The SAU is funded by sale of publications and donations from foundations and a highly diverse array of companies. Donations have come from over a hundred sources. Authors published number well over 200.

In its early years the SAU was concerned with the critical evaluation of the welfare state. Many of its authors’ ideas were then very controversial. These ideas have now, especially on schools and higher education - local autonomy, parental accountability, curricular rigour - however, found their way into the policy mainstream.

In the mid-eighties the SAU added a concern with values and started a series about virtue and social policy. These too have been reflected in the return of moral language in current crime policy. This more ‘cultural’ work has expanded into a wider examination of cultural change in modern society. Such books include Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society, which entered the bestsellers top ten within a month of publication – something previously unheard of for a think tank publication. The Guardian said of attacks on Anthony O’Hear, whose chapter in Faking It questioned the public response to the death of Princess Diana: 'The pillorying of O'Hear is like the rage of Caliban having seen his own face in the glass; it suggests he has come dangerously close to the truth.’ Recent books in this field include The Dictionary of Dangerous Words, Losing Friends and All Oiks Now: The Unnoticed Surrender of Middle England.

The SAU also pioneered discussion of hazard regulations with books such as The Death of Humane Medicine, A Diet of Reason and Drinking to Your Health. These study both the use and abuse of science in making allegations about products and lifestyles and the consequences of regulation. More recently this has been linked with a wider analysis of calls for the increased state regulation of corporations and of renewed attacks upon the market economy in general. Relevant titles include: The Corporation under Siege: Exposing the Devices used by Activists and Regulators in the Non-risk Society; When is a Cat Fat? A Critical Look at Executive Remuneration; Good Companies Don’t Have Missions; and Marketing The Revolution: The New Anti-Capitalism and the Attack upon Corporate Brands.

Dr Digby Anderson, after 24 years as Director of the SAU, stepped down in February 2004. Michael Mosbacher has succeeded him as Director.

Several SAU titles have been translated into foreign languages including Spanish, French, German, Turkish and Polish and been disseminated in these countries and the USA.

Board of Trustees