That's self defeating though and precisely my point. The mindset that tax dollars should only be used to fund "valuable" research degrades the actual value of t

That's self defeating though and precisely my point. The mindset that tax dollars should only be used to fund "valuable" research degrades the actual value of the research for society. Academic research should be funded because it's an important aspect of the human experience. The fact that it also leads to material benefits should be a knock on effect that's encouraged but not the core goal. It's a perfect example of Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law IMHO, accountability is great. It just requires difficult work at the top leadership to do so well. Just boiling it down to a single number like "economic value of research" doesn't work.