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This sounds great. Funding people over projects is the right approach to doing research, imo, because of the dangers of pursuing research topics simply because they seem fundable or being afraid to pursue more risky research that could be more beneficial solely due to fundability. I hope this model works great for them and finds its way into more types of science as well.

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Funding people over projects is the right approach to doing research

I would argue this is already essentially the dominant model. There are already more plausible projects than there is money to fund all of them, and the credibility of the person doing the proposing appears to be pretty decisive in terms of whether you actually get funding or not. It also isn't that uncommon for people to be a little dishonest about the funding and play games to shuffle it around to accomplish different ends. It would be nice to eliminate that layer, but I don't think it would be a revolutionary advance in quality or anything.

Academia has used this model for a long time. Endowed chairs are a good example. Universities like faculty members that can attract quality students, quality faculty, and most importantly lots of grand money.

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