R&D Grants and Subsidies

The question

You plan a development or research project and want to know whether public money can pay for part of it, from which agency, and what you must show to get it. You also want to know what the grant does to your IP position, because most programmes ask who will own the results.

Funding comes at two levels. At EU level, Horizon Europe funds collaborative and single-company projects across Europe, and the European Innovation Council supports innovative start-ups and SMEs. Next to that, every member state runs its own schemes, often through national or regional agencies. They support development and research projects of local companies and, in some cases, smaller feasibility studies. The support percentage and the project size limits depend on the programme, the type of project, the size of the company and whether you cooperate with others. These parameters are revised from time to time, so we work from the agency's current call text and not from memory.

Typical starting points are a start-up with a prototype that needs the next development stage, an established company that wants to test a new product line without carrying the full cost, and a research team that wants to cooperate with a university and does not know how to split the results.

Our approach

We start by scoping the project against the instruments. A feasibility study is often the sensible first step: it costs less, tests whether the larger project is viable, and prepares the ground for the development or research application that follows.

We then build the application. Agencies assess technical and economic merit, the capacity of the applicant, and the plan for exploiting the results. We write the project description and budget in the agency's logic and check that the cost categories you declare are eligible.

IP is part of the file. Programmes ask who will own the results, how they will be protected and who may use them. We check this against your employment, contractor and partner agreements and, with research partners, set ownership and access rights in a collaboration agreement before the application is submitted. Our portfolio platform shows what IP you hold today, which helps to describe the background rights the project will build on.

After the award, we follow the milestones. The client portal is where you and we keep track of reporting dates, shared documents and questions on the matter, so that cost statements and technical reports are ready in time and payment is not delayed.

The grant is one of three levers. The same R&D can also support the wage tax relief for research staff and, once it produces protected IP, the tax deduction for innovation income. Costs must be allocated carefully across them, and our overview of grants and tax incentives explains the logic.

The division of work is as follows. Our technology keeps the project documents, deadlines and shared files in the portal and the register of existing IP up to date. The lawyer decides which programme to apply to, how ownership of results is allocated and whether the application is ready. Your engineers confirm that the technical description is accurate, and your accountant confirms the figures. Nothing is submitted to an agency without a lawyer's final review, and we tell you plainly if we think a programme is a poor fit, so that you do not spend time on an application with little chance.

What you get

• A scoping note stating which programme fits, with the main conditions.
• A prepared application with project description, budget and IP chapter.
• Collaboration or ownership agreements where partners are involved.
• A reporting calendar and support for cost statements and milestone reports.
• A combined plan with your tax incentives, so that costs are counted once.

Every submission is reviewed by a lawyer before it leaves Pitch, and technical content is validated with your team.

Take a medtech company with a working prototype and a university partner. We suggest a feasibility study first. We draft the collaboration agreement so that the company owns the results it pays for, and the university keeps the right to publish after a review period. We prepare the application with the company's engineers, check that the budget lines are eligible, and agree with the accountant how time and costs will be recorded. After the award we calendar the reporting dates in the client portal and prepare each cost statement with the finance team. The lawyer reviews the application before submission and every report that touches ownership or exploitation of the results.

Next step

Send us a short outline of the project, its budget and the partners involved. We will tell you which route looks most promising.

Schedule a meeting or contact us.