[dnautics]

It's not just the subsidies, but how they are awarded - right on with the "structure of the academic enterprise".

Consider: To get promoted to professorship, you have to selected by slighly hoarier professors; to be selected, you have to have published works, which are (anonymously) reviewed by other professors, and be awarded grants with (anonymous) review committees of other professors. You probably went to grad school under the tutelage of professors in the same circle... And at least in the past scientists were sufficiently generalist that you had a wide pool of fellows who were reviewing your work at all stages; now we have siloed subdisciplines (like "chemical biology" - which, mind you is not the same as "biological chemistry" or "biochemistry"), and the emergence of "interdisciplinary research" which somehow instead of encouraging generalism, instead promoted dilettantes who couldn't hack it in either of their parent fields...

Is there any wonder why research is increasingly unreliable?