Notice

Annex 1: Subsidy Control

Updated 19 May 2023

This notice was withdrawn on

This call closed on 9 June 2023.

This award is being offered under the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme in accordance with section 10(4) of the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Projects funded as part of the International Bilateral Fund qualify as “industrial research” or “experimental development”, where:

  • “Industrial research” means the planned research or critical investigation aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services or for bringing about a significant improvement in existing products, processes or services

  • “Experimental development” means acquiring, combining, shaping and using existing scientific, technological, business and other relevant knowledge and skills with the aim of developing new or improved products, processes or services

Subsidies given under these categories and subject to maximum award amounts and subsidy ratios set out in the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme. These are as follows:

  Industrial Research Experimental Development
Small Enterprises 70% of the eligible project costs 45% of the eligible project costs
Medium Enterprises 60% of the eligible project costs 35% of the eligible project costs
Large Enterprises 50% of the eligible project costs 25% of the eligible project costs

Enterprises may receive a 15% uplift to the subsidy ratios where the project involves collaboration between enterprises, where as least one of the enterprises is an SME, or between an enterprise and one or more research and knowledge dissemination organisation, which must have the right to publish its own research results.

For the purposes of subsidy control, the following definitions are applicable:

  • A small enterprise has an annual turnover below £10.2 million, a balance sheet total below £5.1 million and the average number of employees must not be more than 50
  • A medium enterprise has an annual turnover below £36 million, a balance sheet total below £18 million and the average number of employees must be no more than 250
  • A large enterprise has an annual turnover above £36 million, a balance sheet total above £18 million and the average number of employees is above 250

To qualify, two of the three conditions in the above definition must be met.

Applicants should note that the maximum award amount for both industrial research and experimental development projects is £3,000,000 per enterprise per project.