There are two kinds of peer review in academic science - at the point of publication, and the point of funding. While quantities of ink have been spilled on th

There are two kinds of peer review in academic science - at the point of publication, and the point of funding. While quantities of ink have been spilled on the former, the latter gets far less attention - though as you might guess, this is a much more contentious issue because millions of dollars of funding may be on the line. A good discussion is here: "Is there hard evidence that the grant peer review system performs significantly better than random?" https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/128343 https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/128343 In short, 'freedom of research direction', aka 'blue skies research'[1] is steadily becoming a thing of the past, as grant managers and politicians and academic administration teams increasingly take the view that they're the ones who should be directing what kinds of research are done, rather than the academic researchers themselves. This is enforced by a grant system that narrowly defines how the funds can be spent, meaning that your average academic researcher has been transformed into a corporate drone following orders from the executive floor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_skies_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_skies_research This transformation of academic research began around the same time Bayh-Dole legislation granted exclusive licensing of university patents developed with taxpayer funds to private interests (1980).