R&D tax relief and grants for innovative businesses

In this Gravita webinar on R&D tax relief and grants for innovative businesses, Pieres Flowers, Head of R&D and Alan Sanders, Audit Director, outline what the session covers and conclude with a Q&A. Alan provides a grant “journey” from identifying competitions through application, delivery, and building evidence, stressing eligibility pitfalls, timing, partner agreements, and the importance of designing an audit trail before spend. He explains what grant audits test, common audit issues (missing time records, miscategorised spend, unapproved changes), and available support such as UKRI/Innovate UK funding finders, alerts, networks, and advisors. Piers explains R&D tax relief as a UK corporation tax incentive based on qualifying expenditure, gateway criteria, key cost categories, benefit ranges under different regimes, and HMRC’s four tests (advance, baseline, uncertainty, qualifying work), illustrating with sector examples and highlighting common misconceptions, documentation expectations, and compliance steps including claim notification and the additional information form. 01:53 Grant Funding Overview 02:55 Grant Journey Steps 03:43 Eligibility and Timing 06:39 Who Grants Support 07:50 Strong Grant Applications 09:47 Building Audit Evidence 12:40 Grant Audit Explained 14:06 Common Audit Pitfalls 16:04 Finding Support and Funding 19:35 Grant Takeaways and Handover 20:29 R&D Tax Relief Intro 23:18 Gateway Criteria 25:25 Qualifying Cost Categories 31:56 What the Relief Is Worth 35:44 R&D Activity Tests 36:25 R&D Criteria Breakdown 39:20 Tech Sector AI Examples 44:09 Life Sciences Trade Secrets 49:03 Engineering Testing Versus R&D 51:27 Manufacturing Scale Up Uncertainty 54:16 Construction Aesthetic Driven R&D 56:10 Common Claim Mistakes 58:03 Mapping R&D Within Projects 59:13 Who Counts As Competent 01:02:27 HMRC Forms And Evidence 01:05:50 Five Questions Checklist