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Over the past decades, significant experience has been gained in demand-driven research on climate change in many countries. In the Netherlands, a competitive call for proposals for large research programmes at the interface between policy, science and private sector was issued in 2001. Members of the Dutch climate research community proved they were able to develop two large research programme proposals which were funded: 'Climate changes Spatial Planning' and its successor 'Knowledge for Climate'. The programmes ran from 2004 to 2012 and from 2008 to 2014, respectively. Both programmes can be considered as a 10-year research programme experiment to develop knowledge about both the climate system and climate compatible development by crossing disciplines, institutions and national research funding strategies. Within this 10-year period, a trend can be observed in which a 'top-down' climate impact assessment approach is increasingly combined with a 'bottom-up' approach. Based on the 15 articles presented in this special issue (and others), we argue that this development has enriched both fundamental and applied research on climate adaptation. Despite the predominantly Dutch-oriented scope of the presented research, we believe that such experiences can be of international interest. Climate adaptation research finds itself in between global systems knowledge on the one hand and practical needs and experiences at the local, regional and national level on the other. This demands the utmost from all actors involved to enable an efficient and constructive flow and use of knowledge and expertise.

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