Funding of projects under the second phase of the NDSP will be based upon a number of important principles, including:

• activities supported will be subject to competitive processes, rigorous assessment and ongoing review;
• communication of knowledge and progress will be an integral component of all projects;
• all projects, where feasible, will have national, basin-wide or regional application;
• management of dryland salinity and its impacts will not be viewed in isolation from other resource management issues at catchment or regional scales;
• program outputs will include options, practices and principles which increase the confidence of resource manager's to design and implement beneficial landuse systems that manage dryland salinity and its impacts;
• the program will complement and, where possible, support state salinity management programs, local action plans, and catchment management plans; and
• R&D outputs will be interpreted and presented to meet the needs of different stakeholder groups including policy makers and opinion leaders, land and water resource managers, local government, state agencies and conservationists.

Based on benchmarks adopted by the NDSP, three project design and arrangement combinations are proposed for strategic allocation of phase two investment:

Multidisciplinary projects -

projects that identify, develop, trial and communicate solutions to problems relating to each of the program objectives. These projects have a critical mass required to enable economies of scale and will be designed and managed in an integrated way with multi-disciplinary teams.

Targeted projects with specific outputs -

projects that provide specialist information to enhance implementation of multidisciplinary projects as well as having wide application to activities in other catchments or regions. These projects are expected to be implemented in the early stages of phase two so that their outputs can be integrated with the multidisciplinary projects and be adopted by other land and water resource managers before the end of phase two.

Innovative Projects -

it is important to provide an incentive for lateral thinking and new approaches in any R&D investment program. Up to 10 percent of the total available investment will be made available for projects that develop or trial new tools and lateral thinking directly linked to the program goal and objectives.

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