Bandwagons are pervasive in science. With the increase in attention-seeking both within the science community through the competition for highest-citation impact journal papers, and to grab the attention of the media and the public, bandwagon science is one of the dominating features of the evolving science landscape.

• Evidence that funding science in a ‘bandwagon’ gives more or less return
  It is important to understand the effect of concentrating research funds in some areas not others, and how the rise of bandwagons affects this. We might ask do we get more or less new science results from funding in bandwagons, or away from them.
  To my knowledge there is no clear data either way on this.

• Evidence that bandwagons lead to evading existing mechanisms for allocation
  Because bandwagons by the very nature demand an active response from funders, this often leads to reallocation of funds in their direction (which is of course their reason for their proliferation).
  A recent UK audit report [https://www.nao.org.uk/report/biss-capital-investment-in-science-projects/] on large-scale science govt spending (by BIS), castigated the lack of planning that happens. “Because the 2010 Spending Review resulted in a significant reduction in funding for new science capital projects, the research councils did not, after 2010, continue their well-established exercise to recommend projects for funding. When extra funding did become available, usually at short notice, BIS had to quickly identify projects where funding could begin to be spent but did not have a plan to help it prioritise projects in a structured way.”“In 2014 BIS undertook a prioritisation exercise that identified 15 new projects involving capital expenditure of £800 million up to 2021. However, there were weaknesses in how it prioritised projects. BIS carried out a public consultation with the research community and agreed the criteria it would use to prioritise projects, but did not specify the information it needed from respondents. As a result, it did not have good-quality information to assess and prioritise new projects. BIS informed us this was because it had identified them as crucial to the UK and its international standing”.
  They emphasized that running costs of science infrastructure can be substantial, and thus there are significant implications in avoiding such planning, when jumping on new opportunities. They suggests that funding is being allotted due to popularity among scientists, and that this is less than ideal, with fudging going on to hide lack of business cases and results. They suggest the science ministry “lacks adequate analysis of whether its investment in a portfolio of science capital projects is optimising scientific and economic benefits. We regard these shortcomings as avoidable and undermining of BIS’s ability to prioritise and deliver value for money across the range of its capital funding of scientific research“.

• Evidence that bandwagon areas cost more
  The Australian government has tried to look at value for money (via esteem) in different research fields [http://www.arc.gov.au/sites/default/files/filedepot/Public/ERA/ERA%202015/ERA_2015_National_Report/ERA2015_Section4.pdf]. Their highest esteem fields (Biochemistry, Space Science/Astronomy, Genetics) are also among the most expensive per research output (Aus$60k/output). On the other hand, compared to its investment, engineering does far less well in esteem.