Much publicly funded research never leaves academia and governments want an ROI in terms of seeing the research in products. US research agencies have been trying to incentivize commercialization of research and for PhD students to pursue entrepreneurship. They launched the NSF i-corps program to facilitate that, with the intial curriculum by Steve Blank.

Of course, this article is talking about UK research, but I assume the same desire to have research have impact applies.

Isn't that a little like saying that the government expects to see a "ROI" from educating children?

The positive effects of open sourcing science could be seen down the road and not in a direct way, but in more indirect ways.

Governments do expect an ROI from educating children. Educated children make employable adults who make taxable income which makes governments happy.