[N1H1L]

I am at a US national lab, and for a lot of our history, we operated that way, too, where much of our money was fundamentally internal. There was a scientific track and management (money-bringing track). No salary or title differences.

But, for the last decade, DOE has been obsessed with productivity metrics such as dollars per paper. These metrics do not make much sense from an NL perspective because the goals of such an institution are different. One reason for this productivity obsession that many old-timers suspect is that many grant and performance reviews are done by established university professors. As you accurately describe, for such a group of rent-seekers, everything is a nail for which they have an h-index hammer.

[nextos]

Sadly, I think you are right, and actually rent seeking is the best term to describe the general attitude of many established university professors.