Innovation management & funding

As major stake for many French companies, tax credits such as the RTC, the ITC (Innovation Tax Credit), the CRTC (Collaborative Research Tax Credit) or the Young Innovative Company and the IP Box require expertise, experience, methodology and rigor in order to face increasingly stringent controls. Our value proposition responds to these challenges by providing an exhaustive and secure determination of tax credits, while improving internal processes and saving time for engineers and project managers.

Our consultants provide services on Research Tax Credit or Innovation Tax Credit, in particular for :

• Audit R&D and innovation projects
• Calculate the RTC (estimated and final computations)
• Present risks and issues associated with all projects and expenditures in a transparent manner
• Secure eligible projects through the elaboration of technical documentations
• Raise awareness and train stakeholders on how the RTC works and on tax news using innovative and adapted tools
• Support for tax controls

Concerning more specifically the IP Box, our consultants help you to identify the eligible assets or families of assets (patent, copyrighted software…), to calculate the income base eligible for the reduced tax rate at 10% (revenues, R&D expenses and Nexus ratio), and to structure your organization in order to benefit from the program in a secure manner.

Wavestone assists its private and public clients in their public funding strategies. We have significant expertise in these mechanisms and calls for projects, whether they are :

• European : Horizon Europe, Life Programme, Innovation Fund, Connecting Europe Facility…
• National: Programmes d’investissements d’avenir (PIA), France Relance, Bpifrance, ADEME, ANR…
• Regional (ERDF funds, REACT-EU, INTERREG…).

Direct funding, grants or repayable advances (often in synergy with strategic partnerships), are essential for research, development, training or investment activities for example. They allow to optimize cash-flow, return on investment, intellectual property, and to identify development opportunities, but specific skills are required to obtain them.

We support our clients and secure the process to :

• Analyze projects and help to mature them
• Identify and analyze funding opportunities
• Communicate on projects and interact with public authorities
• Build and present projects to funders according to the formalism and deadlines imposed
• Coordinate and lead national or European consortia for the preparation of applications and the implementation of funded projects
• Secure and justify the funding obtained
• Identify subsequent opportunities (exploitation strategy and new developments)

Innovation is no longer an option for companies but a daily necessity. In this context, our teams support numerous industrial clients in identifying digital and business technology assets as well as in implementing innovation levers to position the company in a growth, operational performance and transformation scenario.

We have developed a know-how around three pillars of intervention in a logic of long-term support :

• Assistance in defining strategic innovation orientations : A central piece of work that allows us to define the innovation fields that can feed the strategy of the company and its businesses. Our interventions focus on building R&D and innovation roadmaps, optimizing activity/project portfolios, measuring the performance and impact of innovation, and conducting strategic analyses of emerging markets.
• Innovation ecosystem construction : To meet strategic ambitions, we support major transformations in R&D and innovation : digitisation, reorganization, open innovation… We have also developed expertise in the implementation of dedicated systems: creation of R&D center or elaboration of roadmap for them, set up innovation lab, incubator or intrapreneurship program, as well as in supporting teams in the change and adoption of these transformations.
• Development of new products, services and business models: Innovation projects, whether products, services or others, must be subject to a specific management adapted to their nature and level of maturity. Our consultants intervene in the framing, instruction, experimentation and industrialization phases of complex projects according to different methodological frameworks (lean start-up, agile…).