Canada’s two biggest innovation supports compared — a refundable tax credit vs cost-shared funding plus advice.
dgm is an independent osFoundry integration partner — not affiliated with osFoundry’s maker (OS LLC), and dgm has no completed client integrations yet.
SR&ED and IRAP are Canada’s two biggest innovation supports, and they work very differently — many companies use both.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| SR&ED | Refundable tax credit claimed after the fact (CRA) |
| IRAP | Cost-shared funding + an advisor, applied for up front (NRC) |
| Together | IRAP for the build, SR&ED on eligible R&D afterward |
How they differ
SR&ED is a tax credit claimed on your return after you have done the work — refundable at 35% for CCPCs up to the limit. IRAP is up-front cost-shared funding plus a technical advisor (an NRC employee) that you apply for before the work. One is retrospective and tax-based; the other is proactive and project-based.
Using both
They are commonly combined: IRAP supports the project as you do it, and SR&ED is claimed afterward on the eligible R&D portion — subject to rules that prevent double-counting the same dollars. Program parameters, amounts and intake windows change frequently — confirm the current details on the official program page before relying on them.
Which to start with
If you have a defined innovative project and want advice and funding now, look at IRAP; if you are doing R&D with technological uncertainty and want to recover cost afterward, plan for SR&ED. Important: these are programs a business applies for directly with the government agency, bank or cluster that runs them. dgm is an independent AI-integration agency — not a registered, approved or official deliverer of any program here. dgm can help assess fit and scope an AI project, but government money does not flow through dgm.
Where dgm fits
dgm is an independent integration partner that helps Canadian businesses adopt osFoundry — scoping a first use case, handling the build, and connecting AI to the systems you already run. dgm can help you scope the AI project that a program would fund — but you apply to the program directly. dgm is independent of osFoundry’s maker (OS LLC) and has no completed client integrations yet, so everything described here is a service offered, not a past result. If you want to scope a practical first project, dgm can help you map it out.