Please remember that any publicly-traded company must follow guidelines, US-based or otherwise. There are rules for what constitute R&D for those who want to understand why 'company asked me to fill a report'
Non-US based publicly traded companies would likely not have to follow guidelines of the American IRS?
(Though, of course, that might be wrong. American SEC tries to have global jurisdiction, whether you want them to apply to you or not. Matt Levine writes about that a lot in his 'Money Stuff'.)
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/irc-41-asc-730-r...