What we are missing is a sponsorship model that is able to fun this kind of thing. It's not infeasible - look at university grants dispersement as an example of the overwrought predecessor of this. A ton of money moves through such institutions, and funds a lot of interesting projects.
One thing I've been envisioning is something like a "certified B corporation" style qualification that companies can get that indicates they contribute financially back to open source commensurate to the amount of it they consume to run their core business. If everything you do runs through open source software, in a moral sense, one can make the argument that you owe something back to it.
Having recently come out of grad school, tell me about it...
But the same general problem exists in industry. Our fear of doing things non-optimally only results in a less optimal solution. It's a risky move to take no risks.
In both academia and industry you see the same people doing the same things in the same way. It's no wonder things don't change. You can't have a paradigm shift by following the paradigm (playing it safe). I feel like this is a big shame in both tech and academia as the histories of these have always been made by those who rocked the boat. At some point we just have to admit we're not very good at predicting the future and instead of trying to predict what will be the most successful we should fund passion. I'm sure charlatans will get funded too, but its not like we're doing a good job at preventing that from happening now anyways...
One thing I've been envisioning is something like a "certified B corporation" style qualification that companies can get that indicates they contribute financially back to open source commensurate to the amount of it they consume to run their core business. If everything you do runs through open source software, in a moral sense, one can make the argument that you owe something back to it.