Congratulations! You’ve been awarded a grant from the Chief Scientist / Innovation Authority.
We’ve compiled a list of frequently asked questions to help you make the most of it.
To qualify for support of personnel expenses, all employees involved in the R&D program—including the CEO, senior executives, staffing agency employees, and subcontractors serving as personnel replacements—must report their hours using a computerized system with task assignments.
Therefore, each employee or manager must report daily how their working time is allocated across tasks. To support this, all company activities during the R&D period should be defined as reportable tasks.
According to Innovation Authority guidelines, reporting must be done from the company’s offices, the employee’s home, or an approved “hot spot”—a designated location such as a hospital laboratory where employees are occasionally permitted to report from.
In exceptional cases where reporting occurs outside the company, the report must clearly indicate this for each instance, including the total hours reported for the development project outside the company and their percentage of the total project hours. Reporting outside the company requires prior approval from the Innovation Authority.
Reports should be made at the beginning and end of each workday, marking transitions between tasks.
You must report daily on the tasks performed, or at the latest by the following working day. The report will not be considered retroactive. No retroactive reporting is allowed, except in cases of absence. Retroactive corrections and reports for hours and tasks will only be allowed in exceptional cases, such as if a day were mistakenly left unreported. Allocating hours to tasks on the following workday will not be considered retroactive reporting.
For retroactively reported tasks, an employment percentage will also be calculated separately. Tasks must be stated clearly and unambiguously, ensuring that the employee, R&D manager, accountant, and external auditor can easily identify the report as exceptional and retroactive. A warning will appear when reporting retroactively, advising that retroactive reporting should be avoided in the future.
Additionally, the date of the amendment and/or exceptional retroactive report, along with the nature of the change, will be clearly stated. (e.g., the original task to which the hours were assigned versus the corrected task).
Starting November 20, 2020, every company supported by the Innovation Authority must use an approved attendance system for reporting work hours and tasks.
At the end of each month, a report must be generated, including a statement and the date of issuance. The employee and project manager will confirm the task assignments and report with their signatures, including the date of the handwritten signature. Advanced attendance systems allow for digitally signed reports to be issued.
It is crucial to manage reports in an orderly and complete manner, including required signatures from day one. This ensures that if employees leave before the R&D period ends, you can still obtain their signatures. Such situations create a material defect, exposing the company to a financial fine.
Yes, you can report using a smartphone, as long as the reporting app is approved by the Chief Scientist.
The employment percentage determines the employee’s monthly salary cap.
For companies receiving a grant from the Chief Scientist, the employment percentage is divided into two parts: the employee’s overall employment percentage and the percentage dedicated to the project. It is crucial to report this accurately. For example, if only 70% of an employee’s time is dedicated to a project funded by the Chief Scientist, this must be reported. While the employee may be full-time, only 70% of their employment will be recognized by the Chief Scientist, subject to the standard.
