Think about science, design the experiment? Go to the journal and register it first!

right, it's OK without Data. Journals are serious about increasing the transparency and repeatability of scientific research.
In an ideal world, scientific research would look like this: scientists say I have an idea, I design a way to validate it, I study it according to my plan, I get evidence to support/deny my original idea, and finally my research is published in a journal.images by SASA
But the reality is that positive, unexpected, particularly novel results are more likely to be considered for publication by magazines than negative, complex, trying to repeat the results of previous studies. This raises two main problems: first, that large amounts of data that are not easily published are left in a dark corner of the laboratory or in the drawers of a warehouse that can never be referenced, that academic and economic resources are wasted (in fact, they were aware of the problem decades ago); "The pressure is driving scientists to manipulate data and conclusions, whether intentionally or unintentionally, such as HARKing and P-hacking (collecting, selecting, or analyzing data until statistically significant), making their scientific findings all the more compelling and, to some extent, leading to an increasing number of unreplicable experimental phenomena."this
, a new way to contribute, the Registered Report, was born.Registered Report is a new contribution format initiated and supported by the Center for Open Science (COS) to minimize publishing preferences (intentionally or unintentionally). This contribution allows authors to submit their scientific questions and experimental designs to journals for peer review before doing the experiment, and the reviewed report can be "accepted in principle", meaning that the article will be published after a second round of peer review, provided that the study is actually carried out in accordance with the methodology described in the pre-submission report.Registered report workflow
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The type of contribution, which can be called Reistered Report, must meet at least two conditions:
1. Peer review must occur before the results of the study are seen
2. The manuscript reviewed before the study (i.e. the first round) cannot be rejected on the basis of the results themselves, but only because the quality of the study does not meet the requirements, cannot be performed in accordance with the experimental steps that have been "registered" or if there is an unsolvable problem that results cannot be clearly reported.? It is not only "good results" that make the publication of scientific papers pay more attention to the original driving force of scientific research- good scientific problems and good scientific experimental design.
. A research project can get peer advice and communication at the beginning to help researchers assess whether the study is feasible and eventually published. Even with negative reviews, researchers were able to improve experimental design without significant time and resource investment, using rigorous design to avoid possible errors in the research process.
? On CV, "Accepted in principle" is more competitive than "Manuscript in Preparation", although the "acceptance in principle" of the registration report has shown to some extent that the research is of a fairly high standard in methodology, although the experiments are still ongoing.? Registration reports are not suitable for all types of studies, and this type of contribution is designed for Hypothesis-drive (hypothetic-driven) studies and is not suitable for descriptive and discovery studies.
? The higher legal requirements for registering to report to the other party mean that researchers may need to do more rigorous experimental design to meet standards such as data sample size and statistical effectiveness stated in the report.
journals are acceptable for registration reporting?
concept of registration reports was first introduced, it was first applied to some psychological journals and neurobiology journals, and later journals distributed in other fields began to experiment with this new way of writing.the distribution of journals receiving registered reports (based on the current list of COS journals)
there are currently 70 journals that practice the contributions of registered reports in different forms, and this list is constantly being updated as more and more journals are added. (There is a partial list of journals receiving PR below, and it is important to note that some journals use registration reports as a regular contribution option, some open registration reporting options only for some albums, and some introduce only some of the concepts of registration reports.) There are classifications in the list)what are the requirements for two rounds of contributions to the registration report? Take BMC Biology as an example.Eight journals under the Springer Nature Publishing Group have received or are about to receive registered report contributions, of which BMC Medicine will be the first clinical research journal to receive a registered report, and the upcoming new BMC Ecology will be the first to experiment with this new approach in the field of ecological research.The major journals receiving registration reports have slightly different requirements for the content and implementation of registration reports, even if journals under the same publishing group have different standards for the contribution of registered reports, mainly reflected in the following 19 entries (the following table lists the requirements for journals receiving registered reports under Springer Nature, BMC Medicine and BMC Ecology implementation standards are about to be issued, more specific implementation processes and standards refer to the registration report contribution guidelines for each journal), and the first to determine whether the requirements can be met.
The emergence of registration reports is a common exploration by the entire scientific research community and the technology publishing industry for more transparent and credible scientific research exchanges, and in addition to registration reports, Open Peer-Review, Results-free Review and other ways are also taking shape and growing. These new explorations come with a wonderful original intention, even if carefully designed, there must be shortcomings; look forward to the attention and care of every scientific researcher, publisher, so that scientific research in a bright direction, even if only one step closer ...
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