I don't see any way to get around the fact that science is expensive. Researching the boundaries of human knowledge requires access to rare or novel materials, which requires people to invest time and effort in producing them, which of course requires money. If your research requires access to vats of liquid oxygen, or high powered lasers, or ultra pure chemicals, or 500 pure bred rats, you'll need people working full time to produce those things for you, and they need to be able to put food on their table.

There's plenty of scientific research being done outside the narrow physical-sciences type of fields you mention. Not all science is expensive in that way.