A Federal Universal Basic Income along with a Single Payer Healthcare system would go a long way to supporting 25 years of false starts for projects where the primary initial investment is intellectual labor. Many science, engineering, and cultural projects fit this description.
While I do believe there needs to be a first world floor to living conditions, I've come to more understand UBI as one more way of killing the middle class. It's the Supply side, a lack of competition, that is out of whack for many of the most expensive things in the US, and probably most other industrialized nations.
UBI increases how much the poorest can pay, it does nothing to limit how much can be demanded by the rent-seeking rich. In effect UBI is a subsidy to the rich and an attack on the middle class.
If there aren't enough doctors as a whole, that's a sign that either the incentives and detriments offered by society are incorrect or that barriers to entry are too high for the market to function. (In the case of medical professionals in the US I've heard that a combination of artificial scarcity and malpractice worries are the issue. For the latter I'd like to see criminal (reckless endangerment, etc), rather than economic, outcomes for egregious cases; which should also apply to institutions training and certifying doctors. With that layer of protection the 'insurance' against being harmed should instead be covered by normal disability programs at the society level.
In the case of insufficient doctors in an area, that sounds like a great place for the military to have a base and provide civilization; though the doctors (and possibly other professionals) not existing there might also be a sign of larger issues.
If a place isn't economically viable anymore it is important to identify the root cause and fix it, or offer assistance to relocate to places that are useful for their residents and society.
Having those is pretty orthogonal to actually getting results in science. No need to mix them in.
Universities should actually fund (so indirectly by the goverment from taxes) long term research. That’s kinda the whole point of Universities, in addition to education. Long term research that doesn’t have immediate short them commercial interest. Not make the scientists be basically startup founders that must constantly pitch to get money.
And the reason we want to support that is because on long term there often is very useful commercial benefits that then improve everyones lives.
UBI is a fantasy for children.