Having worked at a major research facility as a research scientist I can say that providing incentives to researchers is usually not the problem.
At least where I worked, we worked on limited government contracts that were intended to scratch a particular itch (or explore where that itch might be). "Innovation" only really ever happened when the client asked the right question, and we managed to find a novel answer. Sometimes the contracts were for just a few months, sometimes for decades depending.
There was almost no room for self-guided exploration or innovation in the sense that I think this article is talking about. Nobody ever got a contract for a few million $$$ and a couple of years to just "go forth and do what you do and innovate".
On the front side of actually doing the work, we spent inordinate time and effort hunting for grant money and contracts and trying to secure those as well. But again, once we got the work, the strings attached were usually so restrictive that most of the work ended up being more or less mechanical except for a couple particularly sticky problem areas (which of course is why our services were employed).
At least where I worked, we worked on limited government contracts that were intended to scratch a particular itch (or explore where that itch might be). "Innovation" only really ever happened when the client asked the right question, and we managed to find a novel answer. Sometimes the contracts were for just a few months, sometimes for decades depending.
There was almost no room for self-guided exploration or innovation in the sense that I think this article is talking about. Nobody ever got a contract for a few million $$$ and a couple of years to just "go forth and do what you do and innovate".
On the front side of actually doing the work, we spent inordinate time and effort hunting for grant money and contracts and trying to secure those as well. But again, once we got the work, the strings attached were usually so restrictive that most of the work ended up being more or less mechanical except for a couple particularly sticky problem areas (which of course is why our services were employed).