Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there is no such thing as society. Her successor David Cameron has asserted that the concept of ‘The Big Society’ is a central plank of his administration’s agenda. Universities have found it easy to take a distanced view of the rhetoric of government, but the current Conservative government has also insisted that this concept of ‘The Big Society’ must determine a significant proportion of research funding. ‘Society’ is one of the most contested terms in modern thinking – though completely undefined in government policy! What then should we make...