I'd like to see a financial approach to deciding pay by giving researchers a small and perhaps nonlinear or time bounded share of any profits that arise from their research.

Then peoples CV's could say "My inventions have led to $1M in licensing revenue" rather than "I presented a useless idea at a decent conference because I managed to make it sound exciting enough to get accepted".

A lot of good research isn't ever going to make anyone a single dime, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

That's what patents do.