Recent environmental research in the Netherlands: towards post-normal science?

Dutch environmental sciences have a tradition of multi- and interdisciplina nty and are developed in close interaction with Dutch environmental policy. Interdisciplinarity and policy relevance, two elements that are also promi nent in the climate change scientific and policy debate, form highly import ant issues within the theory of post-normal science. The greater part of th e Dutch climate research is organised in the National Research Programme (N RP), a research programme that explicitly focuses on delivering a contribut ion to the policy process. This paper uses four criteria for post-normal sc ience (namely the management of uncertainty, the management of inter- and t ransdisciplinarity, the management of policy relevance and the management o f quality) to detect a trend towards post-normal science. These criteria ar e useful for indicating long-term shifts but they do not (yet) provide meas urable standards to assess scientific programmes like the NRP. The paper co ncludes that the NRP can not be typified as a post-normal research activity , but that it undoubtedly contains post-normal aspects. Especially the grow ing attention that is paid to the involvement of different stakeholders and divergent perspectives refers to a post-normal scientific practice. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.