Signs of the Times is an independent, self-funded collective. We exist to provide a space for the free exchange and circulation of ideas on the left, free from sectarian loyalties or ideological dogma.

Since 1992 Signs of the Times has produced seminar series, major conferences and other events of various sizes ranging from 10 people to 500, as well as producing a number of publications including individual discussion papers and edited volumes. The subjects covered by our events and publications have ranged from contemporary philosophy to transport policy, cultural theory to direct-action politics, globalisation to the politics of popular music. Speakers have included Anthony Giddens, Doreen Massey, Charles Jencks, Sadie Plant, Chantal Mouffe, John Jordan, Ed Soja, Nikolas Rose and Elizabeth Wilson to name only a few. Our organising groups and our audiences have tended to be split equally between professional academics and students and people working in other fields.

We have organised major conferences on the legacy of Foucault, theories of postmodernism, the future of the city, and the long-term significance of Labour's 1997 landslide. At the same time, the core activity of the group has traditionally been a twice-yearly seminar series. These have usually run over a six week period on Monday evenings. Recent themes have included a critique of the Third Way, the rebranding Britain debate, how governments can affect the cultural industries and the basics of good governance. In February 2001 we held a free one-day symposium bringing together activists and intellectuals from the Labour Party, the independent left and the anti-capitalist movement, which was followed by an eclectic seminar series on radical ideas in the 21st century.

Signs of the Times has published three books, all with the publishers Lawrence & Wishart. The most recent is The Moderniser's Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair. A wide-ranging exploration of both new Labour, and oppositional, models of modernisation. Contributors include Andrew Gamble, Stephen Twigg, Anne Showstack Sassoon and Michael Gove.

Initially inspired by a desire to push forward the "New Times" analysis of cultural, political and economic change pursued by the magazine Marxism Today in the late 1980s, we have always regarded that project as one aiming for the renewal of the processes of social, economic and cultural democratisation. As such, no member of the organising group has ever been sympathetic to the argument that in these 'new times', neo-liberalism represents the only viable model for modernisation. We have always been characterised by political and intellectual eclecticism and Signs of the Times has never had any direct link with any formal political organisation or think tank.

We have always had a fluid organisational structure, with the organising group constantly reconstituting itself and reallocating responsibilities on the basis of the commitment of particular individuals to specific projects and to the project of Signs of the Times as a whole. As such, our levels of activity have always tended to depend on the circumstances of the people involved. In May 2002, following a pause in our activities of nearly a year, a meeting of 15, most of whom had had no previous involvement, constituted themselves as the current organising group with a commitment to pursue the goals of providing an open space for discussion and locating potential sites of intervention for those committed both to intellectual adventure and to the defence and radicalisation of democracy.