This blog is for COOs and Operations Directors of innovation-led businesses. Grants can provide funding for your technical team, materials, capital costs, subcontractors and more besides – they are a non-repayable and non-dilutive funding source for R&D projects. During the application writing phase and later, when the grant is approved and the project is live, there are important decisions to be made. In this blog we give you 6 practical facts about R&D grant funding that will help you ensure projects run smoothly.
1: Planning Project Budget in Innovation Grants
With the help of your CFO/FD, gather some key financial information that will be required for your R&D project budget:
- Staff Wages + Social Security Costs + Pension Costs (all eligible as ‘annual staff cost’)
- Software Subscription costs
- Hardware costs
- Subcontractor costs
Include some budget for project management and financial management time. Add budget for:
- Project Management Software
- IP Advice
- Market Research
- Conference (attendance at a conference + travel)
- And ask your grant writer what other costs you should be considering
2: Defining Deliverables in Innovation Grants
Most R&D Grant-funded projects require you to provide a progress report and financial claim every quarter. The progress report is based on project deliverables that you define at the application stage. To give your team more flexibility, you could consider:
- Setting the due date for deliverables in Month 4 or Month 7 (instead of Month 3 or Month 6) which in effect gives you an addition 2months before the next quarterly report – buying your team some potentially useful flexibility.
- Defining the deliverables as ‘reports’ rather than ‘demonstrations’ can make the reporting process simplier. For example, demonstrating an MVP is likely require more progress than sharing a report on the technical requirements for an MVP – both are acceptable deliverables.
3: Being ‘in the loop’ when Writing R&D Grant Applications
Attending regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the application writing team (your internal team + your chosen grant writer) will ensure you can keep abreast of the project as it evolves, and make sure your ideas are baked in. If this grant is approved, you are likely to be the responsible person for project management, or at least project oversight.
4: Project Management of a Live R&D Grant-funded Project
Make sure to allocate some time and budget for a project manager and finance manager in the project budget. You will have reporting requirements to the funder (see next point) that can be time consuming – best to delegate this and have some funding towards these roles. Make sure that the project manager understands the reporting requirements and that simple systems are setup to capture the required information from the start. For example, time sheets, expense tracking and technical documentation.
5: Reports and Financial Claims for an R&D Grant Project
Reporting to the funder happens (normally) on a quarterly basis. Your business will need to present a technical update, financial claim and attend a meeting (online) with your assigned project monitoring officer. At the point that a grant is approved for funding, you have the chance to:
- Adjust the project plan (in particular, the due dates for deliverables) – your chance to delay some key technical deliverables if appropriate
- Set the Spend Profile for the project – your chance to frontload some of the costs if suitable
- Setup a document that will form the basis of your technical and financial claim every quarter – your chance to create a template that can be used throughout the project
6: Managing Partners in an R&D Grant-funded Project
It is likely that your business will collaborate with partners during some R&D grants. Universities or commercial partners can add real value to your R&D projects and they can be onboarded as part of the project team at the application writing stage. Understand how these partners manage R&D grants in their own organisations and align on an approach that suits all parties. Universities, for example, will have internal processes during both the application and live project phases that require sign-off from senior staff members, so understand the timeframes involved to avoid delays.
Summing up
R&D grants are debt-free, non-dilutive and stackable. There are plenty of upsides, now hopefully we have helped you manage the operational aspects. We offer grant writing and grant project management services for UK and EU R&D grants. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss an R&D project or grant funding opportunity.
Alex Chalkley
I have over 20 years experience in founding and scaling businesses, mainly focused on the non-dilutive funding sector. Since 2008, I have built, trained and mentored teams to successfully draw down over €100m in non-dilutive funding from the UK and EU for clients spanning multiple sectors.
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