[MrPatan]

I know you mean well, and I understand the feeling, but how can you say in the same breath that the EU funds useless software and that you wish they funded more software?

Why would the newly-funded software be the useful kind instead of the useless kind?

[amelius]

Because if they got more serious about it, they'd install committees to evaluate proposals, et cetera., like they do for scientific research proposals.

[burrows]

Right, what this problem needs is more committees!

[londons_explore]

The funding should be in return for a chunk of profits (ie. The EU becomes a shareholder).

They should employ teams of investors to decide where EU money is best invested.

They should use their governmentness to investigate companies after a few years and where they find someone got rich, yet the company failed, put some people in prison. Being the EU they can say "using legal loopholes to suck the company dry is in itself illegal".