A universal basic income is widely endorsed as a critical feature of effective governance. It is also growing in popularity in an era of substantial collective wealth alongside growing inequality. But how could it work? Current economic policies necessarily influence wealth distributions, but they are often sufficiently complicated that they hide their inefficiencies. Simplifications based on network science can offer plausible solutions and even offer ways to base universal basic income on merit. Here we will examine a case study based on a universal basic income for researchers. This is an important case because numerous funding agencies currently require costly proposal processes with high administrative costs. These are costly for the proposal writers, their evaluators, and the progress of science itself. Moreover, the outcomes are known to be biased and inefficiently managed. Network science can help us redesign funding allocations in a less costly and potentially more equitable way.