Salinity conference

Background to the study and role of the steering committee
Dr Sharon Davis

My role is just to give you a brief overview of the governance and process arrangements around the project.

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As you are aware, there are two main processes that are obvious in terms of the way this review is going forward. One is the production of material – a Technical Report and a User Friendly Guide, the draft for which has been made available prior to this meeting – and the other is the process that the Academies are running, in terms of scientific peer review.

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The processes were set up specifically with a level of independence, and my role is as the chair of an independent subcommittee of the National Dryland Salinity Program (NDSP). The independent subcommittee is responsible for managing the process in and around the production of the written material that Peter Woodgate and Brian Spies have produced. It is an independent process to the Academies' process, and there is a level of rigour in terms of the extent to which we have maintained disconnect between the two, to ensure independent peer review.

The members of the project steering committee, who as I said are drawn from the NDSP operations committee, are myself, Dr Richard George and Dr Mirko Stauffacher. I would just note that we represent the NDSP, not our institutions.

We have run a process of very high level of rigour. We have been very aware of the need for the project steering committee to remain at arm's length and to review process, not content – explicitly that is the role of the Academies. We have gone through a process of declaring and documenting any conflict of interest, and we have worked with the team to maintain a rigorous process and a level of interaction between the production of their report and the academy process.