The two financial crises mentioned above were caused by the market comparison approach, which is similar to the peer review process. The market comparison approach keeps the price unchanged, when the economic condition changes. The inflexible price causes financial crises. The peer review process defends the established view and serves the same function as the market comparison approach in defending the past: peer review causes innovation crises, as market comparison causes financial crises.
Without any doubt and with justifiable reasons, the greatest hindrance to progress beyond the views of the establishment is the establishment. NSF is starting to look for disruptive and transformative ideas. However, most funding still goes to established institutions, reflecting either an overall lack of new ideas so that the top universities win by default or a lack of a review process to judge peerless ideas, or both.
The first thing NSF needs to do is to modify the peer review process with a valuation system, where only the inputs, expressed as approximate time-invariant quantities, are obtained from peer review, and the final funding decision is based on valuation. Only proposals with valuations higher than their requested budgets should be considered for funding. In general, all rational decisions should be based on valuation. Since a valuation method should consider all the benefits and costs to infinity in time, valuation will satisfy the requirement of full disclosure and full accountability. The Valuation Center at NPU has tested the valuation method (Infinite Spreadsheet) on all NPU proposals. Valuation is necessary in reviewing "peerless" innovations, which are among the most original and transformative.
Regarding EFRI 2012 Topic Suggestions, NPU proposals to NSF have recently initiated four potentially world-wide and historical debates: (1) Software Debate (Completely Automated vs. Partially Automated Software), (2) Valuation Debate (Infinite vs. finite consideration in valuation), (3) Touch Debate (Is touch a unsolved physics problem?), and (4) Freedom Debate (Constrained vs. Freedom, e.g. Free Market, Free Software). PSI contents that all material and human behaviors are constrained by non-violable laws of nature, and that software design should be constrained by the requirement of complete automation to achieve permanent existence. A touch proposal has been submitted to the Dynamic Systems Program.
NSF should initiate a Complete Automation Research/Debate, for automation is the key to the increase in productivity. The suggestion of Complete Automation is based on valuation. The twentieth century technology can be considered Human Engineering, which makes temporary products, which will someday be worthless. Complete automation will enable the creation of permanent entities, which are infinitely more valuable than temporary entities, and will usher in a Creational Technology with the goal of mankind's self-creation. In practice, a completely automated software proposal has been submitted to the CISE Computing Expeditions Program, and completely automated hardware or robotics research should be solicited by EFRI, in the form of Self-Manufactured General Purpose Robots with the ability of touch, for, ultimately, the completely automated software will become DNA, and the Robot, human.