To a certain extent, all doctoral theses are a bit ridiculous – and therein lies their genius. I am allowed to say this because I spent four years of my life researching French Catholicism’s engagement with the first world war for my doctoral thesis, which I nattily entitled Calvary or Catastrophe?

Back then, I was a baby academic hoping for critical acclaim and my own office. I’ve long since been disabused of this dream and have left academia’s dreaming spires behind to become a journalist – a profession that offers me neither my own office nor critical acclaim, but a great deal of online abuse.

And while I don’t expect anyone ever to read my PhD (although you can DM me any time for a copy), I believe that it had some slim critical justification. I also went to graduate school in America and received a five-year teaching fellowship from a private institution. I am happy to say that no taxpayers were harmed in the creation of Calvary or Catastrophe: French Catholicism’s First World War.

Not so for the millions of taxpayers in this country who are on the hook to pay for the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) increasingly bizarre list of funded projects. Founded in 1998, the AHRC receives £70........

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