{"entity":{"id":"idea-tr2-random-audit","kind":"idea","name":"Random audits of published, funded research, like tax audits","aka":[],"tldr":"Funders should randomly select a small fraction of the papers they paid for and check the raw data, analysis and records, with public results. The possibility of an audit changes behaviour.","summary":"Research misconduct investigations are triggered by complaints, which is slow and rare. Randomly selecting 1 to 2% of funded publications per year for a data and records audit (raw data availability, analysis reproducibility, image integrity, cell-line and reagent documentation), carried out by an independent office with published aggregate results, would create a deterrent and an evidence base on the prevalence of problems.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Preclinical results do not reproduce): Errington et al., Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology (eLife 2021)","url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71601"}],"tags":[],"related":["idea-tr2-raw-image-deposit","idea-tr2-data-link-enforcement"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-reproducibility"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Audits will find serious reproducibility or integrity problems in at least 5% of sampled papers, and adopting funders will see this rate fall by half over five years.","rationale":"Random audits deter tax evasion at low audit rates because the expected cost of detection is high; the same logic applies to research where career consequences are severe.","test":"One funder audits 100 randomly selected funded oncology papers per year; publish aggregate findings and track the rate.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"philanthropy","cost":"medium","horizonYears":2},"route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-random-audit/","neighbours":{"idea":[{"id":"idea-tr2-raw-image-deposit","kind":"idea","name":"Deposit the raw blots, gels and microscopy images behind every figure","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-raw-image-deposit/"},{"id":"idea-tr2-data-link-enforcement","kind":"idea","name":"Journals check that data links actually work, and flag papers whose data vanish","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-data-link-enforcement/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-reproducibility","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Preclinical results do not reproduce","route":"/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/"}]}}