RD&I grants

Grants for Research, Development & Innovation (“RD&I”) is part of core Ireland’s R&D support program aimed at developing and significantly increasing company engagement in RD&I activity in Ireland. Companies establishing or substantially expanding their existing Irish R&D function can avail of this financial incentive to carry out in-house R&D projects and collaborative projects with third-level institutes and industrial partners.

It is intended that, through this financial support, companies will be encouraged to grow competitively by increasing their research, development and technical innovation activities and that the quality and quantity of R&D linkages between companies both nationally and internationally will be increased.

The level of funding for RD&I grants is determined on a case by case basis, based on the quality of the application. We often find that the senior leadership and subject matter experts within organisations do not have the bandwidth or time to complete a high-quality application or prepare the drawdown documentation. Applying for and drawing down on an RD&I grant can be a time-consuming process, including determining applicant eligibility, defining the R&D project, completing the application forms, technical assessment, tracking of activities and preparation of drawdown documents.

KPMG helps organisations overcome the challenges of preparing and managing an RD&I applications and drawdowns. We are actively involved in positioning the Irish operations to optimise their R&D funding through RD&I grants, R&D tax credits and the Knowledge Development Box.

KPMG’s dedicated RD&I Grants Practice was established in 2020, as part of our wider R&D Incentives Practice. Our holistic approach to R&D tax credits and RD&I grant applications and drawdowns streamlines the process for clients who are availing of both incentives by capturing the required data once.

Our dedicated multidisciplinary team, comprising tax, finance, science and engineering professionals, have extensive experience in preparing RD&I grants for Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Invest Northern Ireland clients of every size and scale, and in all industry sectors. Our team of scientific experts assist with drafting the technical aspects of the grant application documents and drawdown reports, ensuring they are appropriately pitched while delivering a high degree flexibility. 

We have prepared RD&I grant applications for various leading multinational companies in Ireland, including some of the largest approved by the IDA and Irish Cabinet in recent years.

• Since our foundation, we have built a bespoke claim methodology, which has been highly successful in achieving RD&I grant approvals between €500k-€10m and has allowed us to create a process which aims to maximise your grant while minimising the time inputs from both engineering and finance.
• Our combined methodology for RD&I grant drawdowns streamlines the process for clients who are availing of RD&I grants and R&D tax credits by capturing the required data once.

• Grant identification & ideation
• Grant applications
• Grant drawdown
• Combined R&D tax credit and RD&I grant drawdown preparation