We cannot solve the great challenges of our time through technological innovation alone. For example, the transition to circular agriculture envisaged by the outgoing Dutch government, requires not only new farming techniques, but also a revolution in the way we market, transport and even consume food. To achieve this kind of transition, it helps to develop innovation policies which have a different focus. In a Message to Parliament in 2020, the Rathenau Instituut advocated challenge-driven innovation policy, an approach that does not try to promote specific technologies or sectors but takes a societal challenge as its starting point. The Rathenau Instituut wants to use this report to contribute to the continuing development of this new genre of challenge-driven innovation policy. We focus on research programmes that are intended to help address societal challenges. Based on insights from the scientific literature and an analysis of three international examples, we formulate some points of attention for organising this type of research programme.