Registered Reports
Overview
Registered Reports is a publication format in which peer review and provisional acceptance occur before data collection begins, rather than after results are known. A Stage 1 submission contains the research question, theoretical background, hypotheses, and a fully specified analysis plan. If accepted in principle, the journal commits to publish the final paper regardless of the direction of the results. Stage 2 review then evaluates whether the study was conducted as pre-registered and whether the conclusions are supported by the data. The format directly addresses publication bias by decoupling the decision to publish from the outcome of the study. Introduced in 2013 and coordinated by COS, Registered Reports had been adopted by over 300 journals as of 2022, with major neuroscience titles including Nature Human Behaviour, Cortex, and PLOS ONE among them. Stage 1 protocols are submitted and hosted on OSF Registries.
Connections
- operatedBy: COS (COS coordinates the Registered Reports initiative, maintains the list of participating journals, and hosts Stage 1 submissions via OSF Registries)
- relatedTo: cOAlition S (Plan S-aligned funders actively encourage Registered Reports as a mechanism for reducing publication bias)
- relatedTo: GFRN (national reproducibility networks affiliated with GFRN promote Registered Reports as a core open science practice)
- relatedTo: TOP Guidelines (Registered Reports represents the highest level of pre-registration commitment within the TOP Guidelines framework)
Resources
- https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reports
- https://osf.io/registries (Stage 1 submission platform)
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01193-7 (Chambers & Tzavella 2022, Nature Human Behaviour, review of the first decade)