Since 2011, the R&D Tax Incentive has been the Australian Government’s main programme for promoting innovation and creating incentives for research collaborations between industry and science. In the 2012/2013 fiscal year, AUD 2 billion (approx. EUR 1.7 billion) were dedicated to R&D tax rebates, almost a quarter of the entire public research funding.

The political objectives of the new R&D Tax Incentive are:

• Generous benefits and wider access to the funding, in particular for small and medium-
• sized enterprises (SMEs) and for international R&D
• Increased funding certainty
• Clear eligibility criteria and definitions

First assessments by the tax authorities suggest positive effects of the new scheme:

• More than twice as many SMEs are participating in the R&D Tax Incentive compared to the previous programme; meanwhile the number of applications made by larger companies has fallen
• The R&D expenditures for which a tax credit has been claimed have increased by approx. 15%, with SMEs holding a larger share
• International R&D activities have risen by a factor of 10

An industry survey carried out for this study among 10 companies in Australia finds approval of the R&D Tax Incentive. Start-up companies in particular value the R&D Tax Incentive as significant financial support for building up R&D activities but suggest also some improvements.

internationalen FuE-Aktivitäten ist, empfehlen aber auch weitere Verbesserungen.

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