The past, present and future of Registered Reports

Abstract

Registered Reports are a form of empirical publication in which study proposals are peer reviewed and pre-accepted before research is undertaken. By deciding which articles are published based on the question, theory and methods, Registered Reports offer a remedy for a range of reporting and publication biases. Here, we reflect on the history, progress and future prospects of the Registered Reports initiative and offer practical guidance for authors, reviewers and editors. We review early evidence that Registered Reports are working as intended, while at the same time acknowledging that they are not a universal solution for irreproducibility. We also consider how the policies and practices surrounding Registered Reports are changing, or must change in the future, to address limitations and adapt to new challenges. We conclude that Registered Reports are promoting reproducibility, transparency and self-correction across disciplines and may help reshape how society evaluates research and researchers.

Why most psychological research findings are not even wrong

“…Reforms proposed in response to the replication crisis have focused on improving the quality of empirical evidence by restricting 'researcher degrees of freedom' in the collection, analysis, and presentation of data (Simmons et al, 2011), for example via preregistration (Nosek et al, 2018) or Registered Reports (Chambers & Tzavella, 2021), and by making it easier to verify published results, for example via open data (Morey et al, 2016;Nosek & Bar-Anan, 2012) or improved computational reproducibility (Clyburne-Sherin et al, 2019;Hardwicke et al, 2018). But if content and meaning of scientific claims are so unclear that data cannot inform them, better evidence will fail to have an impact.…”

Raising the bar in sports performance research

“…If we are to appropriately educate and train the next generation of high-quality researchers, we not only need to set the right example, we also need to train these future scientists to focus on quality over quantity (Button et al, 2020). Chambers and Tzavella (2021) report that 77% of submitted stage 1 Registered Reports at the journal Cortex were firstauthored by Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, showing that this new method of publishing is not beyond the capability or constrained timeline of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.…”

Beyond CSI: Calibrating public beliefs about the reliability of forensic science through openness and transparency

“…Second, forensic science journals should consider adopting the registered report journal format [110]. Registered reports are a journal article format in which it is the research plan (i.e., hypotheses, methodology, materials) that is peer-reviewed, prior to data collection, rather than the final article.…”