The Netherlands faces an urgent environmental and infrastructural challenge in phasing out natural gas amidst rising grid congestion. District heating systems offer a promising alternative by enabling the collective use of sustainable heat sources, stabilising the electricity grid, and increasing resilience to market shocks. However, despite national ambitions to expand DH networks by half a million new connections by 2030, the sector is currently in decline, hindered by regulatory uncertainties, market volatility, and the voluntary nature of participation. Against this backdrop, this research investigates the conditions that define successful collaboration in the development and operation of district heating networks. Grounded in collaborative governance and purpose-oriented network theory, the study adopts a qualitative, multiple-case design. An analytical framework was developed by combining Ansell and Gash’s model of collaborative governance with Berthod’s processual view of network dynamics. This framework was applied to three Dutch DH cases involving municipal, private, and end-user actors. Data collection included a literature review, 13 semi-structured interviews across the case studies, and 4 expert interviews. The analysis explored stakeholder roles, phases of collaboration, key success factors, and process tensions that shaped outcomes.

The findings reveal that successful collaboration is not a static state but a dynamic process extending from network initiation to exploitation. A central contribution of this study is the definition of a meta-condition for collaboration: individual goals serve as preconditions, while the shared goal acts as a catalyst. This meta-condition helps explain both successful cases and the sector-wide stagnation, where misalignment of individual goals undermines collaboration, despite consensus on shared objectives. Three consistent key success factors emerged across cases: goal alignment, trust, and commitment. Furthermore, nine process tensions, such as inclusivity versus efficiency, or autonomy versus interdependence, were identified as levers for improving collaboration when recognised and managed early. To support this, the study introduces a practical tool: a set of discussion cards for early-phase project dialogue. Expert evaluation confirmed the tool’s conceptual value.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the understanding of tensions as dynamic mechanisms rather than static barriers and advances the literature on collaborative governance by highlighting the evolving nature of stakeholder goals. The findings are most applicable to Dutch single-system district heating systems involving public-private collaboration and municipal engagement. While limitations include survival bias and national context specificity, the research lays a foundation for future investigations into failed projects, longitudinal dynamics, and cross-country comparisons. By demonstrating how tensions can be purposefully addressed through proactive design, this study repositions tension management as a practical strategy for strengthening collaboration in the Dutch energy transition.

This research addresses how Ricanau Mofo, a low-lying village in Surinam, can become a more water-adaptive and sustainable village, while it faces land erosion, river bank erosion, changing rainfall patterns and sea level rise. It is urgent to intervene, as these issues are expected to increase in occurrence due to climate change. Constraints and limitations that are important to take into account are cultural preservation, maintaining accessibility to the Cottica River, the limited availability of financial resources and the need for a low-maintenance intervention.

Three strategies are proposed. The first focuses on addressing land erosion. Planting vegetation on critically eroding areas is a short term measure, while the long-term involves constructing footpaths with drainage channels. This not only mitigates soil erosion, but also regulates water and is relatively cost efficient. The second strategy targets the river bank erosion, which includes wooden bulkheads with vegetation and stones for short term implementation. For the long term, a river bank protection system with groynes is designed, to break waves, slow down the stream velocity and in time causes land gain. As the long term plans require external financial aid, a business case is set up and shared with the captain of Ricanau Mofo, STEORR, the District Commissioner and the Ministry of Public Works. The third strategy addresses water damage in the urban environment. Short-term it consists of providing building guidelines of where to build more water adaptive, and how. This is placed on an informational board in the village. The long-term contains a flood early warning system and recommended equipment.

This project's significance lies in identifying interventions that are effective against erosion and water damage while being locally implementable in the rural areas of Surinam. It can be seen as a pilot project that is scalable to other villages along the Cottica River or in the whole of Surinam. However, there are limitations to the project. The most important is the lack of data quantity and data quality. This caused implications for dimensioning the interventions and their financial impact. Another limitation is that the project does not create ‘dry feet’ for the village; it creates a way of mitigating water damage while living next to the Cottica River. In addition, there is a limitation in the financing of follow-up projects. Therefore, a business case is also being delivered to the Ministry of Public Works, the District Commissioner of Marowijne South-West and the captain of Ricanau Mofo. They can use it to apply for funds from international organisations and include it in future policy plans.

To summarise, Ricanau Mofo can become more water adaptive by regulating how to build and where, by continuing the prototype of the bulkheads by planting more vegetation and, by requesting financial aid for the river bank protection long term. As Figure 0.2 shows, it not only contributes as a report, but also in a tangible form of a prototype and in educational information boards in the local language to enhance the continuity and help the village.