Crowdsourced Hypothesis Selection

I have a dream site that I wish I could simply will into existence. It would be the ultimate science-to-the-people project. There would be a pool of funding donated by individuals, foundations and the government, but everyone would be able to propose and vote on research questions to test with that funding. In other words, if “does chlorinated water affect the gut microbiome?” is a top vote-getter, then funding would be allocated to answering that queston. Now researchers could submit research proposals to get access to that funding. An expert panel would be responsible for selecting promising and efficient proposals. So, in short: the people decide the questions to fund, the scientists figure out how to test those questions. That would be engaging right?

Of course, I wouldn’t expect most science funding to be done this way, since boring-sounding (but important) questions would be at a huge disadvantage, but I think it would lead to much higher levels of engagement with science if people felt like their burning questions were being heard.