You are not the first person in the world to own a home or drive a car. Insurance companies can offer you cost-effective insurance, because you are doing effectively the same things as many other people.
Science is largely about doing novel things and often being the first person in the world to try something. In order to understand the risks, you have to understand the actual research, as well as the personalities and personal lives of the people doing it.
Then there is the question of perverse incentives. Research fraud is not a random event but an intentional action by the people who take the insurance. If they manage to convince you to underwrite their research, they know that the consequences of getting caught will be less severe than without the insurance, making fraud more likely. Normally intentional fraud would not be covered by the policy, but here covering it would be the explicit purpose of the insurance.
Insurance companies insure one off events all the time. You can literally insure anything, its just a matter if the premiums outweigh what you perceive as the risk. "Uninsurable" just means the price is too high to be considered practical.
The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar. So insurance companies would just make sure that you followed a protocol which minimizes their risk.
perverse incentives are taken into account by insurance. Insuring someone is always a adversarial back and forth to determine if they are being truthful or not. Which is why Life insurance companies require a physical. They don't just have you self report and then accept it as fact.
Industry professionals like lawyers and doctors carry malpractice insurance. A lawyer can still commit fraud. Insurance isn't a black and white thing. It is a sliding scale that ties risk to a monetary value.
Its not rocket science. Just actuarial science. ;)
> The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar.
This is wrong.
Some time ago, I completed the checklists for publishing a paper in a somewhat prestigious multidisciplinary journal. Large parts of the lists were about complying with various best practices and formal requirements in different fields. I often didn't even understand the questions outside my field. And the questions nominally within my field were often category errors. They assumed a mode of doing research that was far from universal. Overall, the process was more frustrating than (let's say) applying for a US visa.
I think you are desperately trying to fit something black and white rather than thinking critically that there is a spectrum of research, some of which is similar to others which can easily have procedures for insuring and others that are more complex that require more diligence from the insurance company. Just like nearly every single thing an insurance company does.
Yes there is novel research that has never been done before? So what? That doesn't change if you can get insurance or not. Thats a failed argument from the beginning.
Anyways you don't seem to be having a discussion in earnest and instead you seem to be intentionally disregarding large pieces of the above arguments and trying to shoehorn in your idea that if there is unique research being done that it means that it is impossible to tell the risk of anything. Kinda silly.
The cases that would require more diligence from the insurance company are the kind of research that should be encouraged. Breakthroughs are more likely to happen when people take risks and try something fundamentally new, instead of adhering to the established forms. Your insurance model would discourage such research by making it more expensive.
Additionally, even if we assume that the insurance model is a good idea, it should be tied to individual researchers, not universities. The entire model of university research is based on loose networks of independent professionals nominally employed by various organizations. Universities don't do research, they don't own or control the projects, and they don't have the expertise to evaluate research. They are just teaching / administrative organizations that provide services in exchange for grant overheads.
Science is largely about doing novel things and often being the first person in the world to try something. In order to understand the risks, you have to understand the actual research, as well as the personalities and personal lives of the people doing it.
Then there is the question of perverse incentives. Research fraud is not a random event but an intentional action by the people who take the insurance. If they manage to convince you to underwrite their research, they know that the consequences of getting caught will be less severe than without the insurance, making fraud more likely. Normally intentional fraud would not be covered by the policy, but here covering it would be the explicit purpose of the insurance.