A Key Government Grants Area: The Industrial Research Assistance Program
The National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) supports projects on a selective basis; IRAP grants can vary from "$10,000 to $250,000" per annum. Your company’s proposal goes through a number of evaluation steps in order to arrive at a successful conclusion that brings a government grant. [For an introduction to IRAP, see our What is IRAP page]. An Industrial Technology Advisor (ITA) will initially meet and work with you, together with us as your consultants providing Small Business Assistance, to get an overall understanding of your proposal. Based on this, an abbreviated 2-page project proposal may be invited and a three-person NRC technology team would then meet with you to evaluate your proposal and your company for “goodness of fit” with IRAP, probe for possibilities of very similar products or processes already existing, and explore possible different directions for your project. If this stage is passed, the proposal, possibly with modifications as a result of interactions with IRAP, then moves to review by a wider “IRAP community” group. Only when this is passed is a full application invited, at which point there are reasonable chances that it will ultimately be approved, although the level of funding and/or timeframe may still be a matter of discussion.

Small Business Assistance
The level of funding may begin with modest preliminary amounts for early stages of a multi-stage project. Larger government grants may be given if the project and company are extremely sound and are an excellent fit with IRAP’s mandate. Industrial Research Assistance Program grants are non-repayable but must be reported as income on the corporate tax return; for start-ups or early-stage technology companies, this usually will not trigger any immediate cash outflow on income taxes payable because of the negative taxable income position that is typical at this stage of the firm’s life cycle. In addition, there is an interaction between IRAP grants and SR&ED tax credits that “grinds” the latter, such that the cumulative effect of IRAP plus SR&ED funding is less than simply additive. Because both programs are federally-funded, the government wishes to avoid “double-dipping”.

A Few Comparisons: The Industrial Research Assistance Program 
& The Research and Development Tax Credit
An approved project under the National Research Council’s IRAP requires regular reporting of progress compared to deliverables committed to in the IRAP agreement. While unanticipated problems can arise, IRAP monitors the influence of such problems on the course of the project and may make adjustments or bring the project agreement to an earlier or later conclusion. Unlike the SR&ED program that is neutral to the ultimate success of a project so long as the SRED criteria are met, IRAP wants to see your project succeed and will work with you to achieve that. Ultimately, IRAP also wishes to see your innovation commercialized, although their mandate does not extend to financial support of the near-commercial phase of a project. Consider the case where two given companies may be conducting very similar or even identical research or technology development. As long as the other company’s work is not in the public domain or reasonably accessible to them, and they each meet the SR&ED criteria, both companies would be entitled to SR&ED tax credits. In contrast, IRAP’s mandate does not permit funding of duplicate research efforts through government grants.

How We Can Help You With Government Grants
TSGI can assist you at all stages of the Industrial Research Assistance Program proposal process: with defining your project in brainstorming sessions, researching closely competing technology, developing costs and timelines, and preparing both abbreviated and full applications. A full application requires both a financial business plan and a technology plan. While the spark of such a forward-looking proposal must ultimately come from you and be based on your technological expertise, we act as your coach and application-writing expert. (If you prefer, we’ll back off and just provide writer assistance). We help you focus on the critical aspects that require your input and find the time needed that, when paired with our resources, results in a tangible proposal that the NRC can consider. Sometimes, we have been assured by clients that they will take care of submitting their own application, only to have years pass and opportunities lost. Other clients acknowledge that they need a champion to bring the threads together and make it happen.

Please also see our What is IRAP and Links pages for further information, or Contact Us.