I wonder if there is a way to identify the side-effects of fundamental research and fund those instead? E.g. could the WWW have been created independently and b

I wonder if there is a way to identify the side-effects of fundamental research and fund those instead? E.g. could the WWW have been created independently and better as a stand-alone project, rather than as a side-effect of CERN? Or are these side-effects more elusive, and the only way to generate them is to let smart people play with a problem?