As an example of diversity of approaches, look at the Fast Grants program: https://future.a16z.com/what-we-learned-doing-fast-grants/ https://future.a16z.com/w

As an example of diversity of approaches, look at the Fast Grants program: https://future.a16z.com/what-we-learned-doing-fast-grants/ https://future.a16z.com/what-we-learned-doing-fast-grants/ It was created in 2020 to give grants for COVID-related research. Its big selling point was that it would give out money fast: very little paperwork to fill out, and yes/no decisions made within 48 hours. They were surprised to discover that even researchers at top universities were having a hard time getting funding out of the usual institutions like the NIH, which were adapting very slowly to the pandemic. They seem to have done very well in speeding up research, at least with the amount of money they had, just by giving out the funding in a way that few-to-none of the existing institutions would.