Post-normal science represents a novel approach for the use of science on issues where facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. Post-normal science was developed in the nineties by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz.

It can be considered as a reaction to the styles of analysis based on risk and cost-benefit analysis prevailing at that time, and as an embodiment of concepts of a new “critical science” developed in previous works by the same authors. Post-normal science is described as “the stage where we are today, where all the comfortable assumptions about science, its production and its use, are in question”.