I'm not in CS research, but even 'top labs' can struggle to get government funding from the NIH/NSF. I worked at a lab that consistently publishes in Nature/Sci

I'm not in CS research, but even 'top labs' can struggle to get government funding from the NIH/NSF. I worked at a lab that consistently publishes in Nature/Science, a few times front cover, and gets very good PR. It's a running joke that we've never gotten NIH funding despite translating our research to people several times. Majority of our funding comes from 3rd party private companies and DARPA, which people might find objectionable despite being a govt. agency. There is no free lunch in raising money for research.