He created the NUSAP, a notational system for characterising uncertainty and quality in quantitative expressions, and together with Jerome R. Ravetz he introduced the concept of post-normal science.

For Peter Gluckman (2014), chief science advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, post-normal science approaches are today appropriate for a host of problems including “eradication of exogenous pests […], offshore oil prospecting, legalization of recreational psychotropic drugs, water quality, family violence, obesity, teenage morbidity and suicide, the ageing population, the prioritization of early-childhood education, reduction of agricultural greenhouse gases, and balancing economic growth and environmental sustainability”.

[12] For Carrozza [9] PNS can be “framed in terms of a call for the ‘democratization of expertise’”, and as a “reaction against long-term trends of ‘scientization’ of politics—the tendency towards assigning to experts a critical role in policymaking while marginalizing laypeople”.

Funtowicz’ most recent work – with Roger Strand - has touched upon the issue of agency at times of change, arguing that a risk centred vision based on prediction and control in front of global and emerging threats should be replaced by one based on commitment: “rather than believing that contemporary global challenges will be sufficiently met by being responsible under risk, we will ask how to stay committed in times of change.” [13] Together with Ângela Guimarães Pereira he curated a volume for Oxford University Press ‘Science for Policy: New Challenges, New Opportunities’,[14] and another with Routledge on the End of the Cartesian Dream[15] which represent an important collective effort gathering three generations of scholars active in the field of PNS, followed a year later by a multi-authors book by the same community on the reproducibility and quality control crisis of science.

[22][23] In the 1990s, Silvio Funtowicz collaborated with the late James J. Kay and other members of what some have called the "Dirk Gently Gang"[24] (including Mario Giampietro[25] and David Waltner-Toews) on the Ecosystem Approach.