Lots of possible ways. Peer review is one. It's how resources are allocated in science. If you want to do a project in science you write a grant proposal. Other

Lots of possible ways. Peer review is one. It's how resources are allocated in science. If you want to do a project in science you write a grant proposal. Other scientists evaluate your proposal and if your proposal is scored more highly than others it gets funded. Obviously, peer review, like any democratic process, is not without flaws (and many scientists have written rants about how the reviewers of their rejected proposals were idiots), but it works reasonably well in practice.