Experimentation in Mission-oriented Innovation Policy - natural gas free districts.
Summary
This thesis focuses on the contribution of district level experiments to the Dutch national mission of the transition towards a natural gas free built environment in the Netherlands. In Mission-oriented Innovation Policy, using experiments is emphasized, but a clear description of the desired contribution of these experiments or guidelines to design such an experiment are lacking. Therefore, it is studied which factors contribute to the internal success (achieving the goal of a focal experiment) and external success (the broader, general impact of an experiment) of experiments that are dedicated to this Dutch mission. These factors are divided over four categories, being multi-stakeholder interaction, niche-regime relationship, network and resources. To study these factors and the contribution of the experiments to the mission, 12 experiments that are part of four different experimental programs are studied by conducting interviews and reading local reports. Additionally, newspaper articles and governmental reports are analyzed. It is found that factors that stimulate internal success or different types of external success may contradict each other. Therefore, it is recommended that policy makers choose which type of success they want to achieve before starting an experimental program or policy, to be able to implement a corresponding policy design. Specific policy recommendations that correspond to the chosen type of desired success are provided.