Research & Development Grants

What R&D Grants?

The UK Government provides access for businesses, mainly in manufacturing (but not exclusively so), to apply for grant help towards the development of new technology within that industry sector. This is used to help companies to take the risks in support for new technology, both to manufacture as well as used in new products.

What is the history of R&D Grants?

In the late 1980s Government decided it would invest grant money to help UK business develop new innovative products and processes. This was piloted in late 1988, and implemented from the beginning of 1992. The scheme was called SMART, and ran once a year as a competition where 180 innovative projects are supported across England.

SMART ran in the first few years as a once-a-year competition, and this continued until 2000. From 2000, SMART was run in each English Region as a competition occurring several times, and each region chose how many competitions they would hold. This continued until 2003, when the SMART was updated with new rules, grant amounts and percentage support. The new scheme was called Grants for Research and Development (GRD).

Since 2003, GRD has continues to be run independently in each English region by their Regional Development Agency, and the scheme covers distinct 3 types of project:

  1. Micro Projects, aimed to develop prototype products that were new to the market sector and very small businesses (less than 10)
  2. Research Projects, aimed at bringing forward innovative high risk technology by companies up to medium-sized (less than 50)
  3. Development Projects, aimed at bringing the technically successful outcome of innovative high risk technology to aid preproduction prototype level, and is open to medium-sized companies (less than 250)

Details of these schemes can be obtained on making contact

How long have we been involved with R&D clients project work?

We have been involved with Government's R&D grant assistance from its inception, both in the capacity of running the scheme as engineers within an English region and providing businesses with services to prepare SMART and GRD project proposals. In total involvement has been over the last 15 years on the current schemes of support. We were involved in earlier support schemes of a different nature which operated over 6 years before.

What is our experience?

We have worked intimately with several thousand companies in the last 15 years, and more, to prepare projects. Previous to assisting business clients, we ran the SMART competitions and were involved in technical and financial appraisals of projects. This gives us very wide experience in help innovative companies develop R&D project proposals for grant assistance.

What is our success rate?

Our success in helping clients gain grant is approaching 80% of the clients achieving a grant.