I get that fabricating data and academic integrity look like a different issue from ROI-based funding, but I don’t think they are. In the context of public funding, there must be a justification for the money spent. For a long time, it was “this research will help all of humanity and further our understanding of the universe”, which is great until it turns out that a lot of the research is questionable at best and outright lies at worst. How does made up research help further our understanding of the universe?

So absent institutional integrity, another justification for funding must be found, and one option is ROI. That has its own drawbacks, but at least if we start there we could move back to a place of institutional trust.