Conclusion

Over the years, the nature of climate change research and policy has changed. Besides the traditional fields of impacts and mitigation, there is now much more attention on vulnerability and adaptation, and on the interaction between adaptation and mitigation. The need for innovative contributions from the social sciences has intensified. In 2004, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) responded to these developments, which were emerging at the time, by launching a research programme specifically targeted at climate change research in the social sciences. Under this programme, entitled Vulnerability, Adaptation and Mitigation (VAM), a total of 12 research projects and six essays were funded.