Forschungszulage: What Does 'Schoepferisch' Mean? (BSFZ)

Why This Article Matters

The criterion "creative" is one of the most common stumbling blocks when arguing your case to the Bescheinigungsstelle Forschungszulage (BSFZ).

Many projects are clearly innovative for the company, but from the perspective of the review logic they look like implementation of known solutions. Describing "creative" accurately significantly increases the chance of a positive certificate and thus of the Forschungszulage as a plannable source of innovation financing. The guide to the application process explains how the overall procedure works.

What Does "Creative" Mean in Practice?

"Creative" (in the R&D/innovation sense) means: your work is based on original, non-obvious concepts and hypotheses — that is, on independent, creative problem-solving with technical knowledge gain, not on routine.

Typical characteristics of creative work:

• New ideas/concepts/methods/strategies are created (not just selecting known best practices).
• There are technical uncertainties: whether and how it will work is not certain.
• It is systematic/planned: goals, work packages, tests/validation are clearly recognisable.
• The result is documentable and reproducible (e.g. measurements, test protocols, architecture/model documentation, benchmarks).

Important: "Creative" does not mean "artistically creative", but technically/scientifically original.

Context: the Frascati Manual and the BSFZ review criteria

The criterion comes from the OECD's Frascati Manual, the internationally recognised basis for defining research and development. It names five features that an activity must meet together to count as R&D:

1. novel: aimed at new findings
2. creative: based on original, non-obvious concepts and hypotheses
3. uncertain: the outcome cannot be determined with certainty in advance
4. systematic: follows a plan with a budget and documented results
5. transferable and/or reproducible: leads to results that can be passed on or reproduced

(Source: OECD, Frascati Manual 2015, ch. 2, paraphrased)

The BSFZ, by contrast, checks only three criteria in its public review guideline: novelty, uncertainty or risk, and systematic approach. There is no separate review criterion "creative". The feature is absorbed into novelty and uncertainty: anyone aiming for new knowledge beyond the state of the art and having to resolve open technical questions along the way is, as a rule, working creatively. For your application, this means you do not prove "creative" in a separate paragraph, but by giving concrete reasons for novelty and technical risk. The guide to the requirements explains the three BSFZ criteria in detail.

Distinction: Creative vs. Routine (the Most Common Misunderstandings)

Not Automatically Creative

• Standard implementation with known tools/patterns
• Parameterisation/customising of standard software
• Routine debugging (after the development phase is complete)
• Market research, marketing, sales
• Pure project management (status meetings, budget, roadmap, coordination)

Even if these activities occur "within the project", they are generally not the innovation work itself.

More Likely Creative (if plausibly justified)

• Development of a new algorithm, a new heuristic, new data pipeline logic
• Prototype construction and testing, as long as the goal is still improvements/insights
• Setting up a pilot line/experimental plant, as long as the primary purpose is innovation/validation
• Solving a hardware/software conflict through a novel system reconfiguration
• Development of new encryption/security procedures (not just applying known standards)

Practical Examples: How "Creative" Works in Real Innovation Projects

Example 1: AI/Computer Vision for Production Lines (Industrial AI)

Creative, if you e.g.:

• develop a new recognition logic that goes beyond static quality controls,
• experiment with uncertain boundary conditions (light, perspective, material variance),
• test new model/feature strategies and document them with benchmarks.

Not creative, if you only:

• integrate a standard model "out of the box" and build a UI around it.

Example 2: Software — New Search Engine / New Algorithms

Which software and AI projects are typically eligible is shown on the page for software and AI companies.

Creative, if you:

• design a search engine based on original technologies,
• develop new/more efficient algorithms with measurably new properties,
• address technical uncertainty (e.g. scaling, latency, result quality).

Not creative, if you:

• merely configure existing search software or write a plugin.

Example 3: Data & Analytics

Creative, if the data collection/analysis is an integral part of the innovation, e.g.:

• development of new methods for data collection or data fusion,
• new evaluation methods that provide insights for the technical solution.

Not creative, if it is only:

• classic market analysis using known methods (e.g. sales figure reporting).

Example 4: Product Design / Design in General

Design is usually not R&D. Exception: design is an indispensable component of the innovation work (e.g. when design decisions trigger technically motivated hypotheses/tests).

Formulating "Creative" Correctly (BSFZ-Ready)

If you want to describe the criterion, these building blocks help:

• Starting problem (technical): What was technically unclear or unsolved?
• Non-obviousness: Why was the path not simply "standard solution X"?
• Hypotheses & variants: Which approaches did you examine, discard, improve?
• Experiments/validation: Which tests/prototypes/benchmarks did you conduct?
• Result artefacts: What reproducible outputs exist (code, measurement series, test reports, specifications)?

Key principle: Creative = independent, non-trivial technical problem-solving + systematic validation.

Why the Forschungszulage Is a Good Option for This

The Forschungszulage is attractive for many innovation projects because it is technology-neutral and does not only cover "laboratory research", but frequently product- and software-adjacent innovation — what matters is proof of novelty, risk/uncertainty, and systematic approach.

If you present this clearly, the Forschungszulage can be a strong, repeatable financing building block for your innovation roadmap. The legal basis is explained in the guide FZulG explained, and how the funding amount is determined in the guide to the calculation.

Official bodies (for context & process):

• BSFZ (Bescheinigungsstelle Forschungszulage) — FAQs & criteria: bescheinigung-forschungszulage.de
• BMF (Federal Ministry of Finance) — overview of the Forschungszulage / procedure: bundesfinanzministerium.de

The other R&D criteria

• Novelty criterion: What "novel" means for the BSFZ, and how it differs from the state of the art.
• Uncertainty criterion: Technical and scientific risk, not market or cost risk.
• Systematic criterion: Goals, work packages, milestones and documentation of results.