A lot of academic research is locked into a particular model where every project has to be doable by 1-3 main people, most of whom are "trainees", and produce a (positive) result in 1-3 years. It's not totally impossible to do other things, but the career incentives push pretty hard in this direction: trainees need 1st author papers, it's harder to fund postdocs after a few years, etc.

Proper staff scientist jobs would help break out of this mould and might even be more cost-effective by reducing churn in the lab and providing people with more guidance.

==But the setup you describe will also require some form of simple metric to track progress- to ensure that 25k isn't going down the drain.==

Maybe. I don't think MacArthur tracks the spending of their Fellowship (a much larger amount).

==According to the foundation's website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential". The current prize is $625,000 paid over five years in quarterly installments. This figure was increased from $500,000 in 2013 with the release of a review of the MacArthur Fellows Program. Since 1981, 942 people have been named MacArthur Fellows, ranging in age from 18 to 82. The award has been called "one of the most significant awards that is truly 'no strings attached'".==

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program

The article claims that university is research is primarily curiosity driven rather than commercially driven, so ultimately discovers fundamental solutions instead of practical ones that can be sold.

University research is strongly optimized to please grant commitees.