Why the research allowance „Forschungszulage“ pays off for companies
With more than 5000 colleagues, Steinbeis advises companies and corporations in the areas of technology, education and funding. Steinbeis is the leading consultancy organisation in the German-speaking world in the area of subsidies. The research allowance plays an important role in this.
Mr Schulte, you and your team have been successfully advising a large number of companies on funding for more than 15 years.
Christian Schulte:
That‘s right and we have been able to provide continuous support to almost all of these companies for many years. In our view, success in the area of subsidies can be measured particularly well in terms of figures. When we work with companies, our common goal is to utilise the maximum amount of funding. And from the company‘s point of view, we do this as efficiently and quickly as possible.
In your opinion, what are the key success factors in the area of subsidies?
Christian Schulte:
After analysing and selecting suitable funding programmes, we benefit in particular from our technological expertise and understanding when applying for funding, as most of our colleagues are engineers. As a result, we are on an equal footing with the respective funding bodies and formulate the funding applications in such a way that they are appropriate in terms of content and wording and have the best possible chance of success. This also applies to the research allowance.
What makes the topic of research allowances so exciting for many companies?
Christian Schulte:
The research allowance is a very interesting component in the funding landscape for many companies. Personnel expenses in the area of R&D, contract research as well as depreciation on movable fixed assets are subsidised. And also retroactively. This makes the research allowance the only funding instrument for which we can apply for companies for both past and future expenses from 2020 to around 2028.
In which sectors is the research allowance of particular interest?
Christian Schulte:
We advise companies in the following industries in particular: Health sector, mechanical engineering, automotive, electrical engineering, food and plastics industry. For many of these companies, we obtain favourable decisions from the funding agency and tax offices. The subsidies have so far totalled between 5-12 million euros per company. This is a subsidy that does not have to be taxed from the company‘s perspective. This has a corresponding effect on liquidity and therefore also has a positive impact on a company‘s key financial figures.
How exactly do you go about advising and applying for the subsidy?
Christian Schulte:
We use a structured approach to advise companies from A-Z. We identify and discuss projects that are suitable for research grants with the company‘s R&D managers and controllers. The collected data is then discussed with us for the grant application, texts are created, checked by us and, where necessary, supplemented in terms of content. We work with a data tool developed in-house, in which all information and texts are incorporated. This means that all parties involved actually work on one file, which saves time and prevents data loss.
From what amount is it worth applying for the research allowance?
Christian Schulte:
We offer companies a so-called „Quick Check Research Grant“, which often provides an initial overview of the funding potential. In practice, we often manage to bring many smaller projects under one roof in the funding application. The advantage: the funding application covers a large number of projects. This saves considerable time in the application process, avoids redundancies in content and maximises success.