Manage your research, design and development

There are several ways you can fund your research and development (R&D) project.

Getting a bank loan

Approaching your bank for a loan will require a well thought-out business plan. Your plan should help investors and lenders understand your vision and goals, explain how you are going to spend the invested or borrowed money and set out how this will benefit both them and the business. See how to tailor your business plan to get funding.

Seek investment

You could try to attract investment from business angels - wealthy individuals who invest in private companies, typically £10,000 to £250,000 - but you must be prepared to relinquish some control of your business. Read about business angels and how they operate.

Apply for a grant

Applying for a grant could help finance part of your project. There are many sources of publicly funded grants and support schemes:

• UK website offers a UK-wide database of business support - search for finance and support for your business.
• Northern Ireland database of support programmes and assistance is also available - search the Northern Ireland business support finder
• Invest Northern Ireland manages programmes that offer advice and financial support for R&D projects in NI - look at Invest NI's R&D solutions
• your local councils and enterprise agencies may have additional programmes of support and finance options

See how to apply for a government grant.

R&D tax reliefs

Businesses carrying out qualifying research and development (R&D) in science or technology may be able to claim UK R&D tax reliefs. Most companies claim through the merged R&D expenditure credit (RDEC) scheme, while additional support may be available for qualifying loss-making R&D-intensive SMEs. Find out more about research and development (R&D) tax reliefs.

For companies considering claiming R&D tax reliefs, HMRC also offers advance assurance services, including full claim advance assurance and targeted advance assurance, to help businesses gain early certainty on aspects of an R&D claim before submission.