ABSTRACT
In 2001, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) started developing transition management to accelerate and direct a transition of the Dutch energy supply system. This process has been labeled the energy transition (ET) and is an example of a coordinated attempt to accelerate and direct a transition at the national level. It was based on the early transition management principles as formulated in the report by Rotmans et al. (Rotmans et al., 2001b) and the National Environmental Policy Plan 4-NMP4 (VROM, 2001b). Based on the basic principles underlying the transition management approach, the ministry itself further developed and implemented a transition management process and method in cooperation with all sorts of actors (Kemp and Rotmans, 2009). This has been a process of learning-by-doing and doing-by-learning in which (transition) researchers have played an active role. In this sense the evolving practice of transition management as implemented by EZ contributed to the development of transition management as presented in this book. While in many ways the Ministry followed its own course (also inspired by other approaches, policy models and innovation strategies), as we will see in the following chapter, it also offered the context in which transition researchers could experiment with, hypothesize and learn about central themes in managing transitions.
