How to monitor your innovative and R&D project as part of a public funding application?

23/09/2025

How to manage and monitor your Innovation project within the framework of the application of the Researcher Withholding Tax Exemption and subsidies dedicated to Research and Innovation?

Managing an innovative and technological project involves managing a multitude of constraints: human, material, technical, temporal and especially financial. Having a global approach to the project promotes the good flow of information and efficient organization, particularly for the creation of a public funding application file where detailed justifications on the project planning are expected.

Why implement an innovation and R&D project monitoring methodology?
What are the main stages of project planning?
Why follow these steps in planning your project?
Why follow your project as part of a public funding request?
How to track your R&D staff’s time?

EPSA Belgium enlightens you in this article!

Why implement an innovation and R&D project monitoring methodology?

In all sectors of activity, international competition, technological evolution, and the shortening of product life cycles require rapid time-to-market. This requires good organization with well-defined objectives.

To increase the chances of project success, companies use project planning methodologies using specific dedicated tools , or more general ones. There are a large number of planning assistance software project that allow you to carry out the most precise planning possible of your development, which is strongly recommended when submitting a grant application.

Indeed, regardless of the direct or indirect aid scheme requested, the company is required to provide supporting documents for its personnel costs involved in eligible R&D projects. This pro rata justification, required by the tax or regional administration in the event of an application or when submitting your debt declarations, must therefore be based on duly recorded time tracking elements.

In addition, the products resulting from R&D (Research and Development) are increasingly complex : teamwork internally and/or externally (R&D centers, universities, technology startups, large companies, etc.) is becoming a real necessity.

What are the main stages of project planning?

Organiser le projet par tâches,
Determine and consolidate the project team and its coordinator,
Create a project schedule by optimizing all tasks,
Update your profitability calculation throughout the project,
Release the financial, human, technical and material resources necessary for its implementation and success.

The creation of the schedule allows an estimate of the total duration of the project, which must be in line with the requirements of completion times, and therefore profitability.

Why follow these steps in planning your project?

Have a global vision of the project, both for the project manager and management as well as for the team members,
Improve monitoring and coordination by the project manager,
Improve your productivity,
Anticipate the implications of the project on your business,
Optimize the chances of success of your project,
Anticipate the necessary corrective actions,
Use the experience gained from your previous projects,
Capitalize on experience for your future projects,
Establish a correct cost price,
Reduce financial risk by requesting specific R&D aid.

Why follow your project as part of a public funding request?

Your project often represents a significant investment for your business. To address this, you may be eligible, subject to conditions, for various government aids such as:

Regional aid, in the form of business subsidies or recoverable advances,
Exemption from the exemption for eligible personnel assigned to your research and innovation project.

The tax authorities impose certain requirements regarding the justification of the time spent by staff assigned to R&D (Research and Development) work. If you receive an R&D subsidy or loan, your employee claims are based on precise timesheets.

If we focus specifically on the tax administration’s controls in connection with BELSPO , it particularly emphasizes the following concepts:

Tracking R&D staff time,
The detailed description of the tasks carried out and the contributions made,
Project updates,
Management and coordination of the project(s),
The match between staff positions and qualifications and the activities carried out.

How to track your R&D staff’s time?

The reporting company must be vigilant in properly anticipating the monitoring of its R&D personnel’s time in advance, using appropriate data collection and storage processes. These are essential to ensure the consistency and eligibility of the project(s) declared for this public aid.

These timesheets, per person and per project , must record the hours or days spent by each person on tasks specifically dedicated to R&D. They represent the most secure way of tracking staff time, even if they are time-consuming and require regular monitoring.

Timesheets can be completed via:

Specific monitoring tools (internal or external),
An individual Excel file,
Time tracking on an electronic calendar (easily removable).

To support the justification of its personnel costs, the company must be clear about the description of the organization of its R&D projects, the distribution of time, and the consistency of the declared elements.

Beyond the justification to be provided, precise time tracking can also simplify the determination of the R&D capital asset base, help determine a price for a product or service resulting from R&D, or even facilitate, by comparison, the budgeting of a future R&D project to request other funding.

Today, EPSA launches its time tracking software

To offer its customers the possibility of effective time tracking, the EPSA group has developed a secure online tool , which allows for detailed management of R&D time. The platform is fully configurable, practical and easy to use.

This tool allows the centralization and standardization of time data by project and by type of task, with functionalities such as:

Management of sites, projects, profiles,
Setting weekly working hours,
Filling times in hours/day,
Extracting the leaves of times past,
Activation of a configurable alert and reminder system,
Implementation of 3 levels of user rights for companies (administrator, project manager, classic user).

Need support?

Specializing in finding funding for your innovations, EPSA Belgium supports you throughout the process: analyzing your technological or non-technological projects, identifying specific aid depending on the degree of maturity, budgeting the amount of aid, drafting the file, support in the event of a tax audit, etc.

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