I have found that many areas of human knowledge are massively disorganized. Everything is also siloed; knowledge that could easily apply to other domains is hidden by things like specialized terminology.
I think it is because science is systematic, or step-by-step, and not systemic - lacking a "whole system" point of view. Both perspectives are needed to understand a reality made of systems.
anything that is unlikely to produce papers. anything that is unpalatable to the science status quo (so you could produce papers but you'll get extremely critical reviewers or be relegated to low tier journals). research in any field in which you yourself are not established but you have good reason to believe you can make a mark
In the article most of the examples of funding sources give their funding to academic labs already.
Discussion about non-governmental sources of funding is fine, but they still almost always funnel back into a lab at a university.