Grant Funding
What Is Grant Funding?
How Does Grant Funding Work?
Essentially, a grant will pay a percentage of the total costs associated with a project, including salaries, materials, and partners. Most national funding grants will pay up to 70% of the total cost associated depending on the size of company, and the grants are usually paid to a business quarterly in arrears.
Unlike a loan, a grant does not need to be paid back in most circumstances. Grant funding is also not taxable and is nondilutive (i.e., no equity is required in exchange for the money).
How Do I Find Grant Funding Opportunities?
You can find the latest grant competitions on grant funding body websites. For example, in the UK and Europe, there are many funding bodies such as Innovate UK, Horizon Europe, Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare, and Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Funding categories can include everything from cleantech and agritech to manufacturing and aerospace. Grants typically provide funding for certain stages of development (e.g., they may be aimed at feasibility studies, prototype development, or field trials).
How Ryan Can Help with Grant Funding
Searching for the right grant can be time-consuming; however, Ryan’s grant sourcing service speeds up the process of identifying the right grant calls. Our grant team will also conduct checks to verify your project fits within scope, ensuring you’re eligible to apply. A review of internal operations—people, process, resources, and technology—all help to craft and shape how your application will be pitched.
As many grant calls have short deadlines, it’s important to ensure your company has a strategic grant plan, aligning grant funds to your business ambitions. This will allow you to react quickly when funds are announced, so as not to miss an opportunity.
Even better, ensure you engage with an organisation that has direct contact with the funders, as this allows you to be at the front of the queue when it comes to hearing about new grant opportunities. This is something Ryan specialises in.
Grant Sourcing
Our grant sourcing service provides an efficient way of identifying the most suitable grant call for your business, whilst our team also conducts checks to ensure you are eligible to apply and to understand and scope out the R&D project(s).
Grant Writing
Once we have sourced the most appropriate grant for your project, our team that is familiar with the required information, formats, and templates will support your business by writing a grant application for funding.
Project Setup
Before a funding body makes a formal offer, it will expect you to undertake several additional steps and fulfil further information requirements. Ryan will conduct your project setup and manage the administration requirements, providing support in the writing of necessary reports and in completing the online application setup process, as well as ensuring projects are compliant for all financial, legal, administration, and reporting requirements.
Project Management and Claims
The final stage is the formal reporting on your grant-funded project, its deliverables, and finances. This is usually carried out quarterly.
What Grants Are Available Right Now?
Grants and R&D Tax Credits
There are several ways of funding innovation, with grants and R&D tax credits being two of them. Grants are upfront funding, whereas R&D tax credits are a retrospective tax incentive that a business can claim after the R&D project has been completed. The two forms of innovation funding can be used together, and it is possible to claim R&D tax credits for a grant-funded project. The interplay between the two schemes can be complex; however, it’s important you receive the correct advice to ensure your claims are optimised.
Connect with an Expert
To find out more about grant funding for your business or how to use innovation grants and R&D tax credits together, get in touch with our experts by completing the form below.