For the absolute majority of entrepreneurs active in Technology business, be it Tech, Deep Tech, or Biotech, it is a natural to think that they and their enterprises are involved in Research and Development (R&D) activities. And, typically, that is the case.
There are criteria, according to which the activity is classified as R&D. Specifically, there are five criteria to be met. The activity must be: novel, creative, uncertain, systematic, and reproducible / transferable. Thus, not every technology project is an R&D project. Understanding whether the project classifies as the R&D project requires a deep dive into the all knowledge and state-of-the-art available: scientific, patent, business, etc. There are specific cases when there is a razor edge between an-R&D and not-an-R&D project.
Typically, R&D covers three types of activity: Basic Research, Applied Research, and Experimental Development. The Basic Research is aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge without any practical application in mind. The Applied Research is directed at gaining new knowledge that can be practically applied to achieve a specific objective. The Experimental Development generates new knowledge, new products and processes or improves them. We discussed Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-scale in one of our previous posts. So, we now can map the three types of R&D activity to the TRL-scale. Basic Research maps to TRLs 1-2, Applied Research maps to TRLs 3-5, and Experimental Development starts at TRL 6.
Thus, we can think that we are doing or are involved in an R&D activity, or our project is an R&D project. However, according to the criteria mentioned above, the project might not be an R&D project.