R&D Incentive-Governance Board Adviser

The mandate

Research incentives are claimed through country processes that define technical uncertainty, qualifying activity, contractor contribution and cost differently. Engineering narratives are often reconstructed after year-end, while finance selects projects from cost centres rather than experimental evidence. The board’s standing question is whether incentive value reflects eligible research supported contemporaneously and consistently, or aggressive portfolio selection that creates repayment, penalty and reputational exposure.

The adviser will review monthly incentive and engineering packs, meet tax and R&D owners before committees, attend four Tokyo sessions and lead one calibration workshop. The cadence will challenge project boundaries, hypotheses, uncertainty, systematic investigation, failed work, baseline knowledge, researcher time, contractor and overseas activity, cost nexus, grants and authority readiness. Local legal interpretations remain with appointed advisers.

The appointment lasts ten months through two major filings and the next research portfolio cycle. Renewal requires a specific board minute identifying a new governance question after management has demonstrated contemporaneous evidence and calibrated selection across three jurisdictions. The role should end when ordinary tax and engineering owners can challenge the portfolio consistently, not persist as an external claim approver.

The adviser has no line authority and takes no executive responsibility for project eligibility, technical conclusions, claim amount, tax filing, accounting, grant application, engineering roadmap or authority engagement. Qualified client officers and local advisers own those decisions. The adviser may challenge evidence and record dissent but cannot sign, certify or market a claim outcome.

Conflicts must be disclosed across electronics companies, tax advisers, engineering contractors, grant bodies, authorities, universities and investors. Matter recusal applies to prior claim preparation or a material contractor relationship. The adviser accepts no percentage-of-credit fee, referral payment or downstream preparation mandate and will keep technical research evidence confidential.

Why the board wants this voice

Tax teams understand statutory tests, engineers understand uncertainty and finance understands cost, but evidence is assembled after decisions when incentives and memory shape the story. Fee models used by some advisers may also reward claim expansion. Directors want an independent research-and-tax operator who can test contemporaneous facts, compare country practice and protect legitimate value without substituting a conservative blanket exclusion.

What you will own

• Challenge project boundaries, baseline knowledge, technical uncertainty, hypotheses, experimental method, results and failed pathways.
• Examine researcher, contractor, overseas, prototype, software, materials and indirect-cost evidence against client-approved jurisdiction rules.
• Test whether narratives and cost selection arise contemporaneously from engineering records rather than retrospective claim construction.
• Calibrate portfolio inclusion through blinded cases spanning clear, borderline, mixed-purpose and non-qualifying work.
• Review governance for ownership, documentation timing, technical sign-off, tax review, adjustments, filing and authority defence.
• Advise directors on value, cash timing, challenge likelihood, repayment, penalty, precedent and reputational exposure.
• Leave a cross-jurisdiction evidence standard that retains legitimate local differences and accountable specialist decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Has governed R&D tax incentives across multiple jurisdictions for electronics, semiconductor, software or complex engineering portfolios.
• Understands technical uncertainty, experimental method, baseline knowledge, failed activity, contractors, cost nexus and contemporaneous evidence.
• Can challenge both overstated claim narratives and unnecessarily narrow exclusion without issuing local tax opinions.
• Has calibrated engineers, finance and tax specialists using real project cases before filing deadlines.
• Has advised boards where incentive fee arrangements, authority behaviour and reputational exposure affected claim posture.
• Preserves local adviser and officer authority while making portfolio inconsistency and weak evidence visible.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all Tokyo evidence sessions and the engineering calibration workshop during the ten-month appointment.
• Will disclose tax-adviser, contractor, authority, university, electronics and investment relationships before claim review.
• Brings multinational R&D incentive governance; grant writing or domestic claim preparation alone is insufficient.
• Will not accept contingent compensation, certify eligibility or provide unauthorised local tax conclusions.

1. 49 words maximum. Which contemporaneous engineering record most changed your view of an R&D incentive claim?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you calibrate technical uncertainty across three countries with different legal tests?
3. 49 words maximum. What fee or prior relationship would require your recusal from this portfolio?