smallish>"The R&D refund is not to do with tax but a claim on...

smallish>"The R&D refund is not to do with tax but a claim on eligible R&D spend."

The statement refers to it as an "R&D Tax Concession" and a "Research and Development Tax refund". I think you are right, however, and they are just being very flexible on the terms they are choosing to use. I guess the idea of a "tax refund" looks better than "our losses are so appallingly huge that the tax payer gives us some of this R&D money back".