As an auditor in a previous life, I empathize…and having now said that word, I wonder if the research review process could do with some revamping with ideas from financial auditing. You’ll always have people trying to fudge things — what’s missing is a formal mechanism for finding it (and the current review process *should* but *isn’t* doing the job). In finance, there’s an independent body responsible for standards, and for training auditors (ie. reviewers) as to what to look for. One could conceive of a similar organisation for reviewing research.