A more radical solution: Basic income for all researchers and provide efficient digital way to see how funds are being spent like open collective for open source. Most problems arise at an individual level where people don't get paid unless they are putting research papers on the new hype thing and the other is expenditure on middlemen and bureaucracy which isn't easily visible. Eliminate the use of research grants for funding people's living.

Bit pedantic but you should use they instead of he/she. People can have other pronouns.