As someone who has worked at such research labs I disagree. Innovation is encouraged, sure, but the research funding model, agencies, and most research labs cre

As someone who has worked at such research labs I disagree. Innovation is encouraged, sure, but the research funding model, agencies, and most research labs create environments that push work on small iterative efforts and system gaming. We as a society have stopped making sure our folks have overall stability in their jobs and as such, maintaining stable income for most is a priority. We don't accept failure, we don't proportionately reward risk taking (and instead, promote risk passing/mitigating), and were increasingly forgetting that regular failure is part of life. As such, even "innovative" labs are increasingly becoming less innovative, IMHO. Where you see innovation happening is where there's typically piles of capital that provide people the stability and environments to take risks and fail, combined of course with luck or foresight in choosing the correct paths forward. That or in places where people sacrifice aspects of their own life to move something forward through some passion, obsession, etc. which is not a market of people I want to compete with.