... I want to disagree with this, but it lines up with my own experience. My work was being presented for similar grants with very flimsy justifications. Not pure web work but it wasn't exactly foundational research either.

I too have seen this as a past entrepreneur in Canada. A lot of accountants are in on misrepresenting SR&ED tax credit applications and will attempt to find the "research" in regular IT work. They will even do the technical writing and filing work for free, while taking a commission of the take when the tax credits roll in (free money). There is a whole segment of startups propped up by SR&ED. I've seen many doing innovative work with a sound business plan, using that money to get to profitability, and it's great they were able to get funding, but a lot of others milked the system fraudulently, using SR&ED consultants to continue to exist when they should have failed.