Research funding is now just a lottery, with under 5% of applications getting a grant. Underfunding combined with a deluge of AI slop applications mean lots of worthwhile projects will simply not get funded.

The ones that will get funded will be the most conservative, the most likely to produce some predictable result, and real discovery will become less likely

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03476-3

#academicChatter