Next in our series on the aspects of innovation that may be eligible for tax relief, we turn our attention to efforts focused on R&D to “make things stronger.”
In the first two blogs in our series on Industry 4.0 for Dummies, we looked at principles that were equally appropriate for both manufacturing and services.
For a number of years now the pressure has been on consumer goods manufacturers to continually reduce the size of finished goods, just look at how small your latest mobile phone is compared with your first “Nokia brick.”
There is increasing clamour around “Industry 4.0” with the main protagonists telling whoever will listen that UK companies must either adopt the principles or get left behind.
If seeing is believing, what happens when the R&D you’re working on simply disappears? That’s what happened to American chemist Roy Plunkett at the DuPont Company’s Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey.
Here’s an oddity: an accidental discovery that starts with one of today’s most likely contenders for R&D tax credit claims (chemical sciences) and ends with arguably one of the less likely qualifiers (textiles).
Everyone deserves a bit of luck. An Charles Goodyear, he deserved more than most. A self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer, he got one of those ideas in his head you just can’t shake.
It’s no secret that R&D can sometimes take a while to come to fruition, but if any proof were needed that persistence pays off, look no further than the humble office Post-it note.
Research and development (R&D) tax relief was introduced by the UK Government to encourage UK companies to invest in more innovation-focused projects and maintain the country’s position as a global leader in science and technology.
