Nah devcoin is different. It Only gives to developers. Im thinking something totally different.
I thought this before. But apparently dev coin is for artists and freaks, too.
Totally aside from your point.
In order for the people you want to honor to accept your coin, there has to be some use or buy-in behind it , of a type you probably won't find here at bitcointalk. I mean, if you randomly sent a physicist a reward certificate you printed out, he might get a chuckle from it, print it out, even appreciate it.
If you sent a physicist a letter saying "hey download and install this software, then send me your address so I can reward you with this token of my appreciation" that letter is probably going in the trash bin.
Do you have the resources to publicize it, maybe start a little foundation or something, and start pushing out word of the effort into scientific/academic circles?
I describe it like this because the other way is to make the coin, try and stir up a market or some value, then honor people with gifts from the market you have created, which they can turn into cash.
Everyone will accept this, if they believe it's honest. But then you have a long way to go making that market before some reward coins will bring academics from from tech-related fields into crypto. And the market has to be strong enough to support the "dumping" of the rewards as well or it will end up like devcoin in more ways than one.