I think this attitude is actually a big part of the problem. Because research is largely government funded there is big political pressure to show that the rese

I think this attitude is actually a big part of the problem. Because research is largely government funded there is big political pressure to show that the research leads to measurable outcomes and that there is zero misuse or waste of funding. This is what has lead to the current system of big administrative bodies just focused on tracking how funding is used (and we can't really blame universities for the situation, reporting requirements on everything they do have increased dramatically). On the other hand nobody cares about the waste in private industry, we are perfectly fine with paying a certain amount for e.g. a Facebook ad even though they just wasted a huge amount of money on a big VR bet.. Maybe we should just admit that there will be wastage and we can't easily measure scientific outcomes and just say we are happy with the overall benefit we get from science/academia for the price we pay for it (which in the broad picture is quite small).