Receiving FRQS funding does not automatically rule out an SR&ED claim. It does mean that the funding has to be understood before anyone calculates the claim.
FRQS is now the health sector of the Fonds de recherche du Québec, commonly called FRQ sector Santé. Doctors still use the older name, and many active awards began under it. The practical question is the same: what did the award pay for, who received it, and which research costs were left to the medical corporation?
Start with the award, not the label
Two doctors can both say they have FRQS funding while holding very different awards.
One may have salary support administered through a university or research institution. Another may have a project grant that pays specific research expenses. A centre, hospital, or research team may be the formal recipient even though the doctor leads the work.
Those differences matter. The award letter, program rules, institutional account, and payment records are more useful than the word "FRQS" on its own.
Government assistance can reduce the expenditure base
Under the federal SR&ED rules, government assistance that can reasonably be related to SR&ED generally reduces the expenditures used to calculate the federal investment tax credit. The adjustment is made against the relevant project and costs. It is not a blanket conclusion that the research has become ineligible.
Suppose an FRQ award pays a research coordinator's full salary. The medical corporation cannot simply include that same salary as though it bore the cost. If the award covers only part of the coordinator's time, or is paid to a different institution for different work, the answer may be more limited.
This is why broad estimates are risky. The funding must be matched to the people, invoices, and periods it actually supported.
Salary awards require extra care
A clinician research scholar award may support the doctor's protected research time. It may be administered by an eligible institution, with a university or another organization responsible for part of the remuneration.
That arrangement raises several questions:
- Who is named as the award holder?
- Which institution receives and administers the money?
- Does the award replace salary, supplement it, or fund project costs?
- Did the medical professional corporation pay any remaining salary or research expenses?
- Were those corporation-funded costs connected to eligible SR&ED work?
The answers should come from the award documents and accounting records. They should not be reconstructed from memory at filing time.
The claimant still has to be identified
Funding is only one part of the analysis. A doctor may lead a project at a hospital while working through a medical professional corporation, holding a university appointment, and receiving an award through a research centre.
The corporation is not automatically the SR&ED claimant because it paid the doctor. The file should also show that the corporation undertook the research, incurred eligible costs, and had the right relationship to the work. Agreements, payroll records, project budgets, and institutional correspondence help establish that picture.
This is closely related to the issue discussed in our article on CIHR and NSERC grants, but FRQ awards deserve their own review because salary support and institution-managed funding are common in Quebec medical research.
A useful review starts with four documents
Before estimating an SR&ED claim, gather the award notice, the complete program terms, the institution's account statement, and the medical corporation's general ledger for the project period.
Together, those records usually answer the first important question: which costs did the corporation actually bear after the FRQ funding was taken into account?
Only then should the eligible research be separated from routine clinical and administrative work. A confidential assessment can review both sides of the file before a number is attached to the claim.