SR&ED for clinical research
A clinical trial can contain eligible research even when most of the trial is routine.
The trial label does not decide eligibility. A medical SR&ED claim turns on a method, measurement, analysis, or technical problem the team could not solve with standard practice. Finding that part can uncover costs that would otherwise go unclaimed.
Look inside the protocol. The whole trial rarely belongs in the claim.
Recruitment, consent, routine visits, standard assays, and ordinary data collection do not become SR&ED just because they support a study. The eligible work begins where the team faces a scientific or technological uncertainty and tests a way to resolve it.
That problem may appear in the intervention, sampling method, imaging protocol, analytical pipeline, endpoint measurement, or another part of the research method. The claim should follow that problem and include only the work and costs tied to it.
Where eligibility may appear
Four moments worth pulling out of the trial record
A method did not perform as expected
An assay, device, protocol, sample matrix, or analysis failed in a way standard practice could not readily explain or fix.
The team tested a technical response
A protocol change or new approach was designed to resolve the uncertainty, then evaluated through observation or analysis.
The result changed the next attempt
The team used what it learned to revise the method, narrow the explanation, or decide which approach to test next.
The evidence is dated
Protocol versions, deviation records, lab notes, analysis plans, datasets, meeting notes, and emails show the work as it happened.
Keep the unresolved research problem at the centre.
A careful boundary protects the claim from being diluted by the much larger volume of routine trial activity around it.
Work to examine
- Experiments or analyses aimed at resolving a scientific or technological uncertainty
- Protocol or method development that formed part of the systematic investigation
- Direct support work that is commensurate with the eligible experimental work
- Eligible salary, consumed materials, and qualifying arm's-length contracts
Work to keep outside the claim
- Routine recruitment, consent, visits, monitoring, and standard data collection
- Work performed only to satisfy an established regulatory or ethics process
- Ordinary statistical analysis using known methods with no technical uncertainty
- The full trial budget when only a defined part of the work meets the SR&ED tests
How the review works
Trace the problem from the protocol change to the supporting cost.
- 01
Map the trial
Together, we identify the trial stages, research entities, agreements, and the point where the unresolved technical problem appeared.
- 02
Reconstruct the investigation
I organize the protocol versions, experiments, observations, and decisions into a clear account of what the team tried and learned.
- 03
Isolate the expenditures
I connect eligible periods and activities to payroll, contracts, and materials without pulling routine trial work into the claim.
- 04
Prepare and support
I prepare the technical claim and expenditure support, coordinate with your accountant, and help answer the CRA if it reviews the work.
Questions clinical research teams usually ask
- Does the whole clinical trial qualify?
- Usually not. A trial can contain eligible experimental work, but routine trial conduct and standard data collection generally remain outside. The claim should identify the narrower uncertainty and investigation.
- Can routine data collection ever be included?
- It may be direct support work when it is commensurate with eligible experimentation, or it may form part of the experiment when the collection method itself is being tested. Ordinary collection with a known method is not enough.
- Do sponsor payments or grants end the claim?
- Not automatically. Funding, contract terms, and assistance can affect who may claim and how expenditures or credits are calculated. Those arrangements need to be reviewed before costs are assigned.
- What if the experiment failed?
- Failure can still produce evidence of the systematic investigation. The program does not require a successful product or clinical outcome, but the uncertainty, work, and expenditures must be supportable.
Official sources
Program guidance reviewed August 1, 2026.
Keep reading
The claim has a filing deadline: A corporation generally has 18 months after its tax year end to report SR&ED expenditures. Waiting for publication or trial completion can put an earlier year at risk.