[fastaguy88]

I think it is worth pointing out that Bell Labs was an Engineering research lab. Scientists there created new disciplines, but in the service of relatively well defined engineering goals.

Contrast this with the NIH, where the science also has a goal - improving human health - but the system to be improved was not engineered. Curing a disease, which has a natural origin, is quite different from improving communications channel capacity.

I suspect that managing engineering research is much more amenable to process analysis than research on biological systems.