Writing the R&D technical narrative

The narrative is the one document every reviewer reads. After this module you will be able to draft one that answers the three questions every scheme asks, with the people who did the work rather than for them, and cut it to fit any of the seven countries' forms. It follows the structure in our guide Writing a technical narrative that survives review.

What this module covers

The three part structure: the uncertainty, the work done to resolve it, the outcome.
Who writes it, and how to run a drafting session with the people who did the work.
Language that helps and language that hurts, with a before and after.
Mapping one narrative onto seven forms.

Three questions, in this order

The forms differ in length and headings, but every one asks three questions, and a narrative that answers them plainly transfers between jurisdictions with light editing.

1. What did you not know how to do?

State the technical unknown in one or two sentences, in terms a competent professional in the field would recognise, and say why the available knowledge did not answer it: what was searched, consulted or tried. Give the baseline, what the field could already do, and the target you could not reach from it.

2. What did you do to find out?

Describe the approaches considered, what was tried, what failed, what was learned and what changed as a result, in date order. This account of the work done to resolve the uncertainty is the centre of the narrative. Refer to dated documents by name.

3. What was the result?

State what was resolved, what remains uncertain, and where the R&D ended. A narrative that admits partial failure is more credible than one that reports total success, and it draws the boundary of the claim honestly.

Section	What it must contain	Source records	Common failure
Header	Project key, period, field, people and roles, list of evidence	Finance project list, team roster	Names and dates that do not match the cost schedule
The uncertainty	The unknown in field terms; the baseline; why available knowledge did not resolve it	Project note, design document, literature search	Describes the goal or the product, not the unknown
The work done	Approaches, trials, failures and changes of direction, in date order, each tied to a named document	Tickets, notebooks, test logs, weekly notes	Lists features built; no failures; no dates
The outcome	What was resolved, what was not, when the R&D ended	Milestone note, final benchmark or test report	Claims total success; gives no end date

Writing with the people who did the work

The person who led the technical work drafts the narrative, or at least dictates it. Finance and advisors edit for structure and consistency with the cost schedule; they do not originate the technical content. A narrative written by someone who was not there reads that way, and the reviewer's first interview question exposes it. A drafting session that works:

The finance lead or advisor opens the project note and weekly notes, asks the three questions in order and types as the technical lead talks.
The technical lead answers in their own words, with the tracker, notebook or test log open, naming the documents as they go.
The interviewer reads the draft back and strikes anything the lead did not say or cannot point to a record for.
The lead revises the draft alone, then confirms every sentence in writing.
Finance checks the project name, period, people and costs against the cost schedule and every form.

Three rules hold throughout. Never draft from a product deck or press release. Never copy last year's narrative and change the dates; reviewers compare years. Write in the active voice, naming who did what; passive constructions hide the people a reviewer wants to find.

Language that helps and language that hurts

Concrete nouns help: the algorithm, the alloy, the tolerance, the throughput target. Numbers help: the target that could not be met, the result achieved. Methods tried and rejected help, and so do dates for the start, the turning points and the end. Marketing adjectives, features and customer benefits, and claims that nobody had done this before without saying what was searched all hurt.

Before: "Tideway developed an innovative, next-generation optical nitrate sensor that delivers industry-leading accuracy and reliability for estuary monitoring customers."

After: "We did not know whether an optical nitrate sensor could hold calibration within 5% for 90 days in turbid estuary water without a mechanical wiper. The three anti-fouling coatings documented in the literature we reviewed (design note, 12 January) had been shown to fail within 14 days in comparable conditions."

The second names the field, the baseline, the target and the document, and a reviewer can test every clause.

One narrative, seven forms

Write the full narrative first, at the length the three questions need: for most projects one to two pages. Keep that version in the file, then cut it to each form's headings and limits, dropping detail rather than substance. Where a form asks for a hypothesis, that is the approach you expected to resolve the unknown; where it asks for a baseline or an advance, the baseline is what the field could do and the advance is what you set out to make possible; where it asks for the information sought, that is the unknown stated as a question.

Illustrative example

Illustrative example. Tideway Instruments Ltd, a hypothetical company, makes water quality sensors. In one drafting session the lead engineer dictated the three answers. The unknown: whether an optical nitrate sensor could hold calibration within 5% for 90 days in turbid estuary water without a wiper, when the known coatings fouled within 14 days. The work: three coatings and two optical geometries tested over six months in a tank rig; two coatings failed at 20 and 35 days; the third, with geometry B, held 90 days in the tank and 70 in the field. The outcome: resolved for tank conditions; the field drift remains open and is carried into the next period as a new unknown; the housing redesign and firmware update were routine and are excluded. The narrative came to a page and a half, with a 700 word version cut for the form. Three engineers over six months cost 150,000 and are claimed; the housing and firmware work, 100,000, is not. The benefit at that country's rate applies to the 150,000, and the lead engineer can defend every sentence because she said them.

Across the seven countries

Where the narrative goes in each country and what the form asks for, in each country's own words.

Country	Where the narrative goes and what it asks for	Country page
United States	Section G of Form 6765 requires, for each business component, its name, type, the information sought to be discovered, and the qualified research expenses allocated to it.	Form 6765: United States
United Kingdom	The additional information form requires, for each project described, the main field of science or technology, the baseline level of science or technology, the advance sought, the scientific or technological uncertainties, and how the project sought to overcome them, together with qualifying costs by category.	Additional information form: United Kingdom
Ireland	The pre-filing notification, where required, includes a description of the R&D activities. Revenue expects contemporaneous documentation for the science test, including evidence of the uncertainty, the advancement sought and the systematic investigation.	Documentation: Ireland
Canada	Part 2 of Form T661 asks for each project: the scientific or technological uncertainties attempted to be overcome (line 242, up to 350 words), the work performed to overcome them (line 244, up to 700 words), and the scientific or technological advancements achieved or attempted (line 246, up to 350 words).	Form T661: Canada
Australia	The registration form requires for each core activity: the new knowledge intended, the existing knowledge and sources investigated, the hypothesis, the experiment, how results were observed and evaluated, the conclusions, the dates and the estimated expenditure.	Registration: Australia
New Zealand	The general approval application asks for each core activity: the scientific or technological uncertainty, the new knowledge or improved process, service or good sought, the systematic approach and the start and end dates.	General approval: New Zealand
Singapore	IRAS requires an R&D claim form for larger R&D claims, giving project descriptions and a breakdown of expenditure, and expects claimants to be able to show, for each project: the objective, the technical or scientific uncertainty, the work performed and its outcome, the location of the work, the personnel involved and the expenditure by category.	IRAS requirements: Singapore

Module 4: Writing the narrative