Things to keep in mind when writing your application

Here are some tips and things to keep in mind:

Involve the right people from your business

The GA application is primarily designed to capture technical information about your R&D activities. Ideally, therefore, the application should be completed by, or with direct input from, people who are in your R&D project team.

No financial information (other than estimated expenditure) is needed at the application stage. This means the finance people at your business will generally play a much lesser role in your application. They will get more involved later on, keeping appropriate records of expenditure and completing the Supplementary Return.

Be as ‘technical’ as you like

Your application will be assessed by someone with appropriate skills, experience and understanding of your field.

This means you needn’t worry about providing a high level of technical detail where appropriate. In fact, we encourage you to write for a technical audience, especially when describing the scientific or technological uncertainty at the heart of your R&D project.

Your activities will appear on your Supplementary Return

When describing your core R&D and supporting activities, keep in mind that the details you provide on your application will later ‘prepopulate’ on your Supplementary Return. This is so that, after the end of the income year, you can record your actual expenditure against your eligible activities.

To help ensure that clear categories of activity appear on your Supplementary Return, try to be as precise as possible when describing the activities on your application.

Commercial factors aren’t assessed

The commercial viability of your R&D isn’t taken into account when assessing your application. This means you don’t need to address factors such as the potential for commercial success associated with your project. Nor do you need to provide a complete project business case. Much of the information contained in a typical business case is irrelevant to the RDTI.