Reforming the Global Basic Research Evaluation System: Using Funding Leverage to Drive Disruptive Innovation and Break Paradigm Rigidity

Basic physics research worldwide is currently trapped in severe paradigm rigidity. The distribution of research funding, academic review rules and selection mechanisms for top academic awards have formed closed circles, which generally encourage incremental research within existing theoretical frameworks and systematically suppress disruptive original achievements that challenge traditional theories and reconstruct underlying logic. Issues such as homogenized involution, reluctance to reform fundamental theories and the decline of critical thinking for pursuing truth have become increasingly prominent in the global research community. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), an objective evaluation system centered on AI has become a core solution to break academic rigidity. This paper reviews the evolution of the global research ecosystem, analyzes the structural defects in funding allocation, academic review and achievement evaluation, and proposes a comprehensive reform plan featuring human-AI collaboration, gradual increase of AI weighting, limited human review and a ban on subjective overturning of AI conclusions. The aim is to break the long-standing deadlock of paradigm involution and drive systemic and disruptive breakthroughs in basic physics.