You’ll be pleased to hear that the UK Government’s definition of R&D is a lot more broad than in the general sense of what some may think as R&D i.e. just new product development.The definition (referred to as the BEIS guidelines for R&D) states that in order for a ‘project’ to qualify as R&D for tax purposes it must achieve these the following two objectives:

• Project needs to seek to achieve a scientific or technological advance; and
• Whilst achieving this scientific or technological advance, needs to be resolving a scientific or technological uncertainty.

Well you’ll be surprised to hear that actually a lot of businesses think they’re not undertaking R&D and it comes down to a few things and so without over complicating the rules if your business meets the following criteria then it’s very likely qualifies (regardless of which industry your business operates in):

• Your business is a limited company subject to UK Corporation Tax; and
• Your business has spent money on staff and/contractors developing new products, processes or services, or improving existing ones

A technological uncertainty may exist where something has been demonstrated as feasible bu tit’s unclear whether a commercial version can be produced. This includes system uncertainty. A ‘competent professional’ would not how to proceed with confidence with solving the problem at hand.

Technological approach is unproven.
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System uncertainty is scientific or technological uncertainty that results from the complexity of a system rather than uncertainty about how its individual components behave e.g. integrating a number of known 3rd party components onto a software platform, but as a result of this consolidation has led to creating changes to the underlying system to ensure all modules were working together in harmony so the end user is unable to notice any difference.