About Us

The Centre for Postnormal Policy & Futures Studies (CPPFS) is an international network of researchers and futurists that promotes futures literacy with a particular focus on marginalised peoples and Muslim societies. CPPFS collaborates with a variety of organisations across all fields of inquiry to cultivate creativity and imagination, engage in critical and ethical exploration, and build agency to empower the crafting of more collective and inclusive preferred futures. The CPPFS has pioneered the theory of Postnormal Times (PNT): a period in which old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to emerge, and very few things seem to make sense. Postnormal Times is both a description of current reality and a theory that explores the changing nature of change. PNT is a result of the forces shaping our globalised and interconnected word: characterised by the speed, scope, scale, and simultaneity (4S’s) that lead to the greater overlap and interaction between complexity, chaos, and contradictions (3C’s). Navigating PNT requires new forward-thinking pathways based on a critical understanding of complexity, awareness of the ever-present potential for chaos, that transcend the numerous contradictions we face. PNT necessitates working with a diversity of perspectives, bringing together shared values, to take us beyond dialogues to polylogues – creative spaces for learning and unlearning. Ultimately, the CPPFS works to promote an understanding of postnormal times and seek new ways of navigating them.