The R&D Roadmap: What It Is, Why You Need It & How to Create One

Research and development (R&D) is an essential part of staying competitive in today's business world. A well-crafted R&D roadmap can mean the difference between success and failure in developing innovative products, processes or services that set your business apart from its competitors.

But what exactly is an R&D roadmap? What are the benefits of having one, and how can you create one?

What exactly is an R&D roadmap

An R&D roadmap is a plan of action designed to help direct and guide a company's research and development efforts. 

It outlines the goals of the project, identifies potential obstacles, and sets out a timeline for achieving those goals. The roadmap is typically divided into phases, each with specific objectives, milestones and deliverables that need to be achieved in order to move through the stages successfully. 

The roadmap can also provide information on resources needed in order to carry out certain tasks or activities, such as personnel requirements or budget allocations. An effective roadmap should help to identify risks and anticipate potential problems that could arise during the development process, providing an opportunity to create contingency plans. 

Furthermore, an R&D roadmap should be regularly updated as projects progress so that all stakeholders have insight into the current status of the project. By taking this approach, organizations are able to stay ahead of the competition by staying focused on their goals and ensuring their research and development efforts remain aligned with overall business objectives.

What an R&D roadmap isn’t 

An R&D roadmap is not a guarenteed plan for success. While it serves as an important first step in establishing strategic objectives for your R&D projects and initiatives, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to achieving R&D success.

A roadmap should be tailored to the specific needs of your business, taking into account the resources available and the timeframe you have in which to achieve results. Additionally, a roadmap outlines desired outcomes but it doesn’t provide the specifics on how you’ll actually reach them, nor does it guarantee that you will do so.

To ensure success, businesses need to develop comprehensive plans that lay out exactly what resources will be needed, what activities need to take place, who will be responsible for each of those activities and when they will occur. This level of detail takes time and significant effort to create but without it, results are unlikely to be achieved.

Finally, an R&D roadmap is not a document that can be forgotten about once created; rather it needs to be constantly reviewed and updated as research progresses and new knowledge is acquired. By regularly assessing progress against milestones, deviations from expected outcomes can be identified quickly and corrective action taken if necessary.

How to create an R&D roadmap

Creating an R&D roadmap starts with identifying and assessing the most important research and development activities for your business. You should look at the current market trends, customer demands, competitive landscape, and other factors to decide which areas to target. Once these have been identified you can use them as a basis for forming goals, objectives and strategies that are tailored to your specific needs.

You also need to take into account financial parameters such as budgeting for research, personnel costs, infrastructure costs and any other associated costs. This will help you create an overall roadmap of how best to proceed in order to meet the goals set. Next comes determining what resources are required such as existing data sources, labor force, equipment or software needed. Once again this should be taken into account when creating the roadmap.

Once all this is established it is time to formulate the timeline of when each aspect of the R&D roadmap should be completed by and track progress along the way in order to adjust where necessary if something isn't proving successful or achievable within a set timeframe.

The final step is ensuring that everyone involved understands their roles and responsibilities and working together collaboratively towards achieving the results outlined by the R&D roadmap. This could mean creating reports showcasing progress or milestones achieved as well as conducting regular reviews with stakeholders involved in order to ensure accuracy and staying on track with your strategic plan.

An example of an R&D roadmap

The government published their R&D roadmap back in 2020, to communicate how serious they were about the future of research, development and innovation in this country.  So, to see an example of a live R&D roadmap, take a look at it here.

Now you have your R&D roadmap, what’s next? 

You now have a clear, documented path to achieve your R&D goals, what’s next? Working out how you’re going to fund it? 

The government-funded R&D tax credit scheme means you can claim up to 33.35% of the costs of your R&D activity as either a tax rebate or a cash repayment. 

This R&D tax relief incentive is a worthwhile scheme to explore, regardless of if you’re a large corporation or a small to medium business. But, to make sure you’re claiming the maximum amount of R&D tax credit as possible, you can either speak to specialist R&D tax consultants like Myriad Associates, who have been filing R&D tax claims for over a decade, or you can use a self-service, online R&D tax credit portal like Tax Cloud. 

With Tax Cloud all you need to do is follow the clear steps and you can file your R&D claim yourself. Tax Cloud is supported by the R&D tax team at Myriad Associates, so you have the added benefit of their help and advice throughout the entire R&D claims process, and they’ll also check your claim before it gets filed with HMRC to make sure you’re getting your full entitlement. 

Find out more by checking out the website, giving us a call on +353 1 566 2001, or dropping us a line here.  

Author Barrie Dowsett, ACMA, GCMA CEO, Tax Cloud