How innovation helps Nottingham to thrive
Nottingham has proud traditions of innovation across many industries, including retail, manufacturing and life science. From the the production of the world famous lace, to the home of Raleigh bikes.
Leading the way in the retail sector, Nottingham is the home of Boots, founded by Jesse Boots back in the 1880's, as well as the famous fashion designer Paul Smith, to name but a few famous retail businesses that call Nottingham their home.
We've also got Nottingham to thank for helping us recover from the hangover headache. Ibuprofen was developed in Nottingham by Dr Stewart Adams back in the 1950's with his team at Boots.
All of these industries were leading the way, innovating and taking risks to resolve technical challenges, and would certainly have been eligible for R&D tax credits.
Typical Eligible R&D Projects
Looking at Nottingham now, it has grown and developed in the digital age, pushing innovation and change, with particular strengths in Retail, Life Sciences, Food & Drink as well as the ever evolving Digital and Creative industries.
Looking at these sectors, there will a whole rage of projects that would typically be eligible for R&D tax credits.
Many businesses under estimate what projects and costs can be eligible for the highly beneficial R&D Tax Credit scheme. It is not just pure science.
The key is 'Resolving Uncertainty' i.e. taking risks and making things better in order to resolve technological uncertainty.
Typical examples of projects across these industries would be:
Retail
- Integration of legacy systems with new ERP systems
- Sustainability improvements, such as redesigning packaging to use recyclable materials.
- Creating solutions to streamline and automate
- Designing, testing and trailing of new prototypes, such as advanced materials, fibre blends or coatings.
- POS technologies and security
Digital and Creative
- Software design - Typically a strong candidate for R&D eligibility, even if the software has similar functionality to existing software, there may well be technological challenges as knowledge and over coming key technical challenges is not available in the public domain.
- Online security
- Extension of platforms and customisation
- Architectural improvements to improve performance and scalability both to the front end application or internally.
Life Sciences
- Design and development of prototype medical devices
- New product design and formulations
- Scaling up of manufacturing from testing to mass production
- Assay and clinical test development
Food & Drink
- New product development and formulation - reduction of sugar/salts/ fat levels
- Compatibility of ingredients
- Improving processing speeds / automation
- Shelf life improvements
Inspire Incentives are experts in helping your business identify eligible R&D Tax Credit projects, with a cost effective approach that won't leave you with eye watering high fees. Leaving you with more money to invest to help your business grow and innovate for the future.
