Take The Red Pill Neo...

So we went today to the Invest NI seminar on Research and Development at the big Invest building at Bedford Street. The jist was, according to Arlene Foster and the Invest NI folk who spoke, that Research and Development assistance needed to be more accessible, simpler and transparent in order for people to respond to it more positively so as to have a higher uptake in applications for, what we all will call from now on, R&D. They're basing this on some report called the Matrix which probably sounds a lot cooler than it actually is. It's not the most original name for a report ever either it seems!

Now anyone who knows us knows that these types of events can make you glaze over in the blink of a Powerpoint presentation but outwardly at least, this new approach to R&D suggests that Invest might be ready to start listening to the needs of us mere mortals who aren't in industrial sectors and who don't export 50,000 things per year to Boston or Portland or wherever people export stuff to these days.

In our case we've got what we think is a highly innovative product in mind and it's at the good ol' R&D stage which means, hopefully, we can gain some assistance. It seems that there are a few bits of criteria but certainly compared to previous Invest NI offerings, these seem minimal.

You can get support for your project definition (what we think is writing a spec document and timescale but we've been wrong in the past), and then you can get assistance in actually developing the project (up to 75% it seems with an additional 15% for collaborative projects.)

And, contrary to our previous brushes with Invest, you don't need to be an Invest NI client to apply and also if you're a business new to R&D you're positively compelled to get involved! Based on the following criteria:

- Less than 50 employees / An Individual
- Not in receipt of Invest NI funding for an R&D project within the previous 5 years
- May have potential to export at a future date

Now there's that export word again but coupled with the words 'may' and 'potential' it doesn't seem so bad.

What qualifies as R&D? We don't know yet but we're going to try to hook up with a sector advisor soon and get this ball rolling. Invest NI are also promising that decisions will be made fast so we'll hold them to that also.

Let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes. More to come...

More info at Invest NI's Website