Change management in Iran’s energy policies: analyzing the transition process from fossil fuels to renewable energies

• Iran’s energy transition requires the integration of MSF, ACF, and PET theories within a change management framework. • Time series analysis (1990–2022) indicates Iran’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and a widening gap with global decarbonization trends. • Political, Governance, and Institutional challenges are the most impactful on Iran’s energy transition. • Seven foresight scenarios, combining MCDM, time series analysis, and CIB analysis, illustrated the plausible futures for oil-rich countries. • The transformative transition scenario (Scenario 1) is the closest path to the IEA’s Net Zero Scenario . In oil-rich countries, the transition from fossil fuels, despite significant renewable energy resources, faces complex challenges. This research aims to design a change management framework to overcome energy transition challenges and to outline foresight scenarios for oil-rich countries, with a focus on Iran. Through a systematic review of the literature and official documents, 33 key challenges were identified and classified into seven groups. The challenges were ranked using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method, and long-term trends related to energy transition indicators were analyzed using time series analysis of World Bank data (1990–2022). Plausible scenarios were developed using the Cross-Impact Balance (CIB) method. Political, governance, and institutional challenges were identified as the most influential, followed by infrastructural, economic, geopolitical, regulatory, market, and environmental challenges, respectively. The time series analysis shows Iran’s high dependence on fossil fuels and a growing gap with global decarbonization trends. These findings were used to identify 7 plausible scenarios. Transformative transition (Scenario 1) and structural stagnation (Scenario 7) were identified as the most favorable scenario and the warning scenario, respectively. The integration of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) in the context of change management was identified as an operational tool to reduce resistance, build consensus, and accelerate structural reforms in energy policy. The proposed framework can assist in the policymaking process to accelerate the energy transition in oil-rich countries.