Preparing your R&D claim
The following questions provide a flavour of the type of information we require; this is quite an exhaustive list so please do not be put off if you struggle to answer these. Try to consider the uniqueness of the technical solution and the challenges you had to overcome rather than the uniqueness of the requirements. Technical implementation rather than information about the problem or solution you have created is best.
What were the overall project objectives?
- What was the overall requirement?
- What gap(s) in existing solutions or technology at the start of the project?
What technology existed at the start of the project?
- What existed before the project was started – in terms of proprietary/ open source technologies, system components, etc. and where did it fall short, limitations or unproven concepts existed?
- What have competitors implemented in the industry and why is the technical solution unique?
Main technological goals (advance)
- What was technologically new / considered to a be a first?
- What new / unique components had to be created as part of the project?
- How did the underlying system architecture work?
- How was the communication between different components or integration handled?
- What gains in efficiency/performance were targeted?
Timelines associated with the project
- Start date
- Major milestones or phases such as design, development, testing, prototypes and release (if applicable)
Main technological complexities
Examples of any of the following:
- Why it was technologically difficult to build?
- What options/design considerations were evaluated?
- Challenges to achieve non-functional improvements (performance, scalability etc.) Any metrics you had targeted which were not clear how to achieve would be helpful.
- What went wrong technologically or didn’t work first time and how it was corrected?
- Any areas that required a number of development iterations / trial and error?
- What were the technologically challenging areas which were highly time-consuming to resolve?
- Were any prototypes, feasibility studies, and proof of concept activities were carried out?
- Details of any test harnesses or performance testing.
Information in general about how the project progressed
- Whether any redesign was required at any stage
- Anything failed during the project
- Changes in scope during the project