On Thursday, 12/11, Senate Leader Harry Reid indicated he wanted a vote on the tax extenders including the R&D tax credit and many other expired provisions during this session of Congress before the break. The order of priority was passing a bill to keep the government open (which they have passed); so the next order of business according to Reid is a defense bill, followed by the tax extenders, as well the terrorism-risk insurance bill.
So amid speculation that tax extenders including the R&D credit may not get done this session, it sounds promising that this will still get done before year end. However, this will likely be a one year extension of the R&D credit for 2014, per the bill passed by Congress on December 3.