S. O. Funtowicz

University of Bergen | UiB · Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities

Post-normal conditions require post-normal resolutions. When stakes are high and values are disputed, policy discussions and decisions cannot rely on science alone. Such discussions require post-normal science , which centralizes the qualitative value of diverse knowledge groups. We discuss the usefulness of post-normal science in the context of th...

Post-normal science (PNS) provides an analytical framework for science practices that do not fall under the Kuhnian definition of science as a puzzle-solving exercise. PNS studies policy-related research when facts are uncertain, stakes are high, values are in dispute and decisions are urgent. Under these conditions, extended peer communities often...

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution is just one of many interconnected and mutually exacerbating socio‑economic crises currently challenging European and global societies. These accelerated and deeply interconnected crises challenge the conventional approach to governance in several ways. Firstly, previous...

La ciencia posnormal (CPN) emerge alrededor de 40 años atrás, contrastando con la actividad científica descripta por Thomas Kuhn como “normal”. La CPN plantea la extensión democrática del derecho al conocimiento que potencia la calidad de la evidencia tecnocientífica en los procesos de decisión para la acción política. La CPN, como ciencia de la an...

Current efforts towards sustainability tend to focus on maintaining existing systems and structures, by relying on reductionist approaches to problem solving. Increasingly, there is a call for more effective action in reaching sustainability, not through reductionism (e.g. solutions which reinforce the status quo), but through transformative societ...

Public participation in environmental decision-making is a legal right in Europe. This principle was established two decades ago by the Aarhus Convention. Since then, it has been increasingly recognised that participation is not only a matter of justice and democracy but also a practical necessity for transitioning into sustainability. This briefin...

Entrevista a Silvio Funtowicz, filósofo de la ciencia nacido en Argentina que desarrolló el concepto de ciencia posnormal como forma de comprender las relaciones entre conocimiento y política en contextos de incertidumbre y complejidad. Se trata de una de las epistemologías críticas con más repercusión de las últimas décadas, con aportes teóricos t...

Entrevista a Silvio Funtowicz, filósofo de la ciencia nacido en Argentina que desarrolló el concepto de ciencia posnormal como forma de comprender las relaciones entre conocimiento y política en contextos de incertidumbre y complejidad. Se trata de una de las epistemologías críticas con más repercusión de las últimas décadas, con aportes teóricos t...

The ways in which societies, institutions and citizens relate to and value nature have played a key role in the interconnected biodiversity, climate change, natural resource and health crises we face. This briefing explores how to reframe the relationships between humans and nature. It examines how holistically understanding humans deep interconnec...

Policy makers dealing with complex environmental problems need knowledge from environmental science as well as from the social sciences to back up their decisions. Integrated Assessment (IA) research aims at providing useful overviews of relevant problems and elements of possible solutions for this purpose. In this context ULYSSES - short for Urban...

The paths followed by sustainability science, post-normal science (PNS), and education for sustainable development (ESD) have crossed several times in the last 20 years. The conversation reported in this chapter highlights some of the elements that connect them and the suggestions that can be drawn for the training of educators who are aware of the...

This paper explores the implications of assessing tacit knowledges of climatic change in extended peer communities, as applied in two European research projects on climate action. Post-normal science (PNS) proposes the extension of the peer community to co-produce better quality knowledge for decision-making on issues like climate change, where fac...

https://issues.org/issue/37-4/

Economic growth is closely linked to increases in production, consumption and resource use and has detrimental effects on the natural environment and human health. It is unlikely that a long-lasting, absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures and impacts can be achieved at the global scale; therefore, societies need to reth...

This paper explores the implications of the widespread success of the term circular economy in the institutional and public debate. The concept of circular economy in itself implies a logical contradiction: on the one hand, the concept acknowledges the dependence of the economy on biophysical flows; on the other hand, the proposed solution—a busine...

Pandemias pós-normais amazonialatitude.com/2020/05/15/pandemias-pos-normais/ Condução da crise do Covid-19 evidencia necessidade de uma nova abordagem científica [RESUMO] Ao abordar as pandemias em contextos locais, a ciência nunca pareceu tão necessária e útil e, ao mesmo tempo, limitada e impotente. O contrato existente entre a ciência e a soci...

Nell'affrontare le pandemie, la scienza non è mai apparsa più necessaria e utile, anche se al contempo limitata e impotente. L'attuale patto tra scienza e socie-tà sta cadendo a pezzi. È necessaria urgentemente una nuova alleanza per affrontare i giorni a venire. https://www.recentiprogressi.it/articoli.php?archivio=yes&vol_id=3347&id=33181 In ad...

Face aux pandémies passées et actuelle, notre besoin et l’utilité de la science s’affirment comme jamais, alors même que nos connaissances et capacités paraissent si insuffisantes. Le « contrat » entre science et société a besoin d’être renouvelé. Une nouvelle entente sur les rôles et les bons usages de la science devient prioritaire afin d’anticip...

Para enfrentar la pandemia, la ciencia nunca ha parecido más necesaria y útil, y a la vez más limitada e impotente. El contrato existente entre la ciencia y la so-ciedad se está desmoronando. Se necesita con urgencia un nuevo acuerdo para navegar el futuro próximo. Autores: David Waltner-Toews, Annibale Biggeri, Bruna De Marchi, Silvio Funtowicz,...

In addressing the local pandemics science has never seemed more needed and useful, while at the same time limited and powerless. The existing contract between science and society is falling apart. A new covenant is urgently needed to navigate the days ahead. Co-authors: © David Waltner-Toews, Annibale Biggeri, Bruna De Marchi, Silvio Funtowicz, Mar...

How to tackle uncertainties and ensure quality in integrated assessment for sustainability? To what extent does the choice of the methodology condition the narrative produced by the analysis? The present work argues that the two questions are tightly coupled. The technique is never neutral. If we are the tools of our tools, as suggested by Thoreau,...

The purpose of this perspective article is to provide a broader viewpoint on the contents of this special issue on ‘narratives of change’ and the role of narratives not only for climate risk governance, but also for the science-society nexus at the global and local scales. Narratives of change are ambiguous; they can be narratives of risk (the tech...

The chapter describes the main insights of Post-Normal Science, and its developments in close association with the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

There are important lessons to be learned for research policy from the history, philosophy and sociology of science. Current European research policies make a number of assumptions about the role of scientific research and innovation in our economies and societies. They also make assumptions about the governability of scientific research by public...

Circa un quarto di secolo fa Silvio Fun-towicz (uno dei responsabili di questa rubrica) e Jerome Ravetz coniarono l'espressione scienza post-normale (Post-Normal Science, PNS) per descri-vere il rapporto fra ricerca scientifica e decisioni di policy direttamente rilevanti per la vita quotidiana delle persone che concernono, per esempio, la salute,...

Present day reasoning about difficulties in science reproducibility, science governance, and the use of science for policy could benefit from a philosophical and historical perspective. This would show that the present crisis was anticipated by some scholars of these disciplines, and that diagnoses were offered which are not yet mainstream among cr...

Sociotechnical imaginaries are visions of desired social and technological futures created and sustained by stakeholders in science, industry and politics. Within the dominating innovation narratives there are a number of implicit and explicit beliefs that are both descriptive and normative. Technological optimism is the prevailing discourse, chall...

Three weeks after the EU referendum, our panel of research and university leaders reflects on ways forward for science and society

In this chapter we examine innovation as a dynamic system of forces that constantly and necessarily redefine the boundaries between science, technology and the normative sphere of liberal democracy. We consider innovation as a phenomenon which is on a path-dependent trajectory, with origins in the scientific revolution and the emergence of the mode...

This is the first chapter of a recently published book: Science on the Verge. Here is a description of the book from the AMAZON web page: A crisis looms over the scientific enterprise. Not a day passes without news of retractions, failed replications, fraudulent peer reviews, or misinformed science-based policies. The social implications are enor...

The governance of emerging science and technologies is becoming an important policy issue. We elucidate the meanings of emerging science and technologies from a multidisciplinary perspective, and we discuss the ethical and political consequences of their introduction in the context of the European Union. We illustrate the relation between science t...

Peer review is the recognized standard for quality control in science. There is a growing awareness about the need to introduce modifications to the traditional peer review process in order to meet the challenges of a continuously expanding scientific enterprise, the emergence of new forms of science, and the impact of new technologies. The growing...

New forms of activity in science are appearing rapidly, due to the interaction of the new technologies of information with new political currents. Traditional practices, structures, and assumptions in key phases of the cycle of knowledge production, including resources, persons, procedures, property, publicity, quality control, and consequences hav...

Arguably the dominant discourse around sustainability today is defined within the cultural frame of modernity, in terms of a grand techno-scientific narrative. Within this narrative some scholars have observed the emergence of alternative modes of science for sustainability, including 'sustainability science', which have a central emphasis on 'plac...

This Milestone One Report is the first of three status reports, summarizing the interim findings of the first three work packages of the AIRP-SD project. This project, conducted for the STRATA (Strategic Analysis of Specific Political Issues) Programme of the European Commission, meets the challenge that sustainable development presents for researc...

For science to remain a legitimate and trustworthy source of knowledge, society will have to engage in the collective processes of knowledge co-production, which not only includes science, but also other types of knowledge. This process of change has to include a new commitment to knowledge creation and transmission and its role in a plural society...

We analyse the relationship between the mainstream framings of sustainability and techno-scientific innovation. Focusing on sustainability, we discuss the need to shift from predicting and promising what to do (in the future) to a political resolution of how we want to live together (in the present). Next, we turn our attention to techno-science, e...

The author proposes seven rules that together add up to a checklist for the responsible development and use of models used at the science/policy interface. The checklist covers the entire modeling process, and it draws on methods and strategies from two formal processes for assessing uncertainty, one called global sensitivity analysis and the other...

In response to the challenges of policy issues of risk and the environment, a new type of science-'post-normal'-is emerging. This is analysed in contrast to traditional problem-solving strategies, including core science, applied science, and professional consultancy. We use the two attributes of systems uncertainties and decision stakes to distingu...

This paper tells the story of the implementation in the early 2000s of a European Project called VISIONS. The project organised conversations about sustainability ideas for some cities in Europe, including Venice, and for Europe as a whole. For the city of Venice four different scenarios were built, illustrated and debated through a social research...

Innovation's potential to deliver food security and solve other agriculture-related problems is high on the agenda of virtually all nations. This chapter looks at two different examples of food and agricultural innovation: genetically modified (GM) crops and agroecological methods, which illustrate how different innovation strategies affect future...

In their book Uncertainty and Quality of Science for Policy (1990), Funtowicz and Ravetz argued the need to extend traditional methods and techniques of quality assurance in policy-related science. Since then, these ideas have been operationalized further and applied. Particularly relevant have been the recourse to extended peer review, to be inten...

Sustainable development indicators (SDIs) may have good potential to bring environmental concerns to the policy agenda. However, different understandings of sustainability, definitions of SDIs and measurement procedures may give completely different assessments of whether society moves towards a sustainable development path or not. Compilation of s...

As biology moves into the digital realm, new ways of representing, manipulating, and appropriating life are emerging. In this paper, the authors examine systems and synthetic biology and map imaginaries of the making of life. The authors present how they have worked with scientists in three different laboratories in Europe and the U.S. by exploring...

Sustainability science has emerged within an essentially modern framework. We start from discussing the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of this framing model and then move to a new pragmatic defining space, articulated through a plurality of epistemologies, languages, styles of research, experiences, and actions, all coming from a global civi...

What is TECHNOLIFE? An Overview The TECHNOLIFE project is a methodological research project designed to provide ethical frameworks for new and emerging sciences and technologies. This report briefly explains the method and the results, and provides our policy recommendations to the European Commission. The TECHNOLIFE method maps ethical issues at...

Risk and responsibility have always been linked philosophically in the Western tradition. The purpose of this article is to discuss possible alternatives to the centrality of the risk discourse, arguing that such alternatives call for a revision in the concept of responsibility, decoupling it from the aspirations of control over Nature and the futu...

Controversies over issues such as genetically engineered food, foot-and-mouth disease and the failure of risk models in the global financial crisis have raised concerns about the quality of expert scientific advice. The legitimacy of experts, and of the political decision-makers and policy-makers whom they advise, essentially depends on the quality...

To respond to a perceived trust crisis related to the management of risks, the concept of inclusive governance has been developed, including a reflection on relevant knowledge and expertise. It strives to consider a wider range of issue aspects and dimensions, as well as to involve a larger set of actors in the decision making or supporting process...

The essays deal with policy issues relating to environment governance in a situation where relevant scientific knowledge is uncertain and contextual. Recent debates in the context include climate change, genetically modified foods, and sustainable development. When stakes are high and decisions are urgent, new approaches are required for knowledge...

Contents of the chapter: §1. Introduction §2. Science and Governance §3. Scientific Challenges 3.1. Health 3.1.1. Establishing a Dose-Response Relationship 3.1.2. Facing New Threats 3.2. The Environment 3.2.1. Objectives and Challenges 3.2.2. Understanding Processes 3.2.3. Measuring the State of the Environment-Reference Measurements 3.2.4. Forecas...

Transdisciplinary research and post-normal science (PNS) are a complementary pair of approaches to the new understanding of science. Post-normal science concentrates on questions like ‘what-about?’ and ‘what-if?’ The issue of ‘safety’ is an exemplar of the post-normal approach, since it cannot be managed by a linear, reductionist analysis.

Environmental modelling depends on a great quantity of data; usually these data are converted to parameters and indicators for use as inputs to models. An important problem is the aggregation of these data. Usually this is done pragmatically and unsystematically and the aggregation procedure depends heavily on the opinion of individual experts. In...

Este artículo analiza el papel de la ciencia en el desarrollo e implementación de políticas. Particularmente se presentan y discuten varios modelos conceptuales (principalmente el modelo moderno) que describen la relación e interfaces entre la ciencia y las políticas de regulación de asuntos medioambientales. A su vez, teniendo en cuenta que estos...

This paper offers an approach to assess the quality of foresight knowledge deployed or generated during foresight exercises. Although 'foresight knowledge' is a special case, the idea of having a procedure, an approach or a method available for assessing the quality of knowledge is tempting: Foresight knowledge consists of various sources such as d...

In this paper we address the challenges of transdisciplinary practice and quality assurance by extended peer review, in terms of knowledge co-production, mediation and representation. Spaces for the articulation of plural narratives are explored, including the opportunity to deploy new information technologies. The TIDDD (tools to inform debates, d...

This article discusses recent experiences with the Numeral Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree (NUSAP) system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment, based on four case studies that vary in complexity. We show that the NUSAP method is applicable not only to relatively simple calculation schemes but also to complex models in a meaningful way and th...

The GOUVERNe1 project has developed a quality assured information system for the improved governance of groundwater resources at the catchment and sub-catchment levels. It required the design and implementation of a Tool to Inform Debates, Dialogues & Deliberations (TIDDD), combining traditional features of decision support systems (such as organiz...

This paper discusses recent experiences with the NUSAP system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment, based on case studies that vary in complexity. We show that the NUSAP method, and especially the pedigree analysis part of it, is useful to assess not only parameter uncertainty but also to systematically reflect upon (model) assumptions and p...

Large, complex energy models present considerable challenges to develop and test. Uncertainty assessments of such models provide only partial guidance on the quality of the results. We have developed a model quality assistance checklist to aid in this purpose. The model checklist provides diagnostic output in the form of a set of pitfalls for the m...

Based on insights obtained through an analysis of an environmental health risk controversy, we developed a reflexive approach to uncertainty assessment, explicitly acknowledging the complexity of the knowledge production process. The approach aims at interactively exploring uncertainty in relation to different scientific framings, societal perspect...

The European Commission has published a Communication on the Precautionary Principle and a White Book on Governance. These provide us (as research civil servants of the Commission) an institutional framework for handling scientific information that is often incomplete, uncertain, and contested. But, although the Precautionary Principle is intuitive...

Whilst the drivers for public participation in water resources management have been firmly established by the Water Framework Directive, guidance on the design, implementation and management of appropriate tools, particularly Information & Communication Technology (ICT) based tools, and processes to support such participation remains sparse. This p...

What is the role of participatory processes in decision-making related to science and technology and in any other area where knowledge and expert advice play an important role? Can expert advice to policy makers be more transparent and accountable? This introduction discusses these and other connected questions under the provocative label of ‘democ...

Climate change represents one of society's most challenging environmental concerns and has been a major factor in changes in the way that environmental policies are debated and informed. Climate change policy faces at least three major challenges: (1) what is known – or not known – about climate change, in particular regarding the relative importan...

The article addresses the need, posed by the challenges of sustainable development and the changing context at the beginning of the twenty-first century, for changes in the method and practice of science. The major challenges for a 'sustainability science' arise from increasing complexity at the ontological, epistemological, and political levels, c...

this report do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Communities or other European Communities institutions. Neither the European Environment Agency nor any person or company acting on the behalf of the Agency is responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained in this report. A great deal of additional i...