[poincaredisk]

As someone often on the receiving end of that money... It's complicated. My organization is doing a lot of great things and it's appreciated both nationally and internationally. Some of that work is funded from EU grants (including H2020 before).

But the problem with research is... it's hard to predict where it takes you. At some point you realize that the project you got funding for is a dead end, but you can do a really cool spinoff that becomes successful but is not technically the same project.

Another problem with research is that a lot of it is exploitation. You can't get a grant for just exploring random things and seeing what happens. But at the same time is a vital part of research - so official grants need to fund a lot of "underground" research, that may or may not mature into an official product. It's hard to estimate is a money is well spent by looking just at the official projects.

... And yes, many of projects are actually wasteful. Bureaucrats are really bad at estimating what counts as a valuable project and what is actually a sham moneygrab. In our case we are known for delivering so we often "win" when we start, but often random shell companies with the hype of the week come dangerously close.