Traditional peer review happens after a study is finished, when the results are known — and that is precisely when bias creeps in. Studies with striking results get written up and accepted; null results get abandoned in a drawer. Along the way, some authors quietly try many analyses and report the one that "worked". Preregistration and Registered Reports are a structural fix: they move scrutiny to before the results exist.
Preregistration
Preregistration means publicly recording your hypotheses, methods and analysis plan in a registry (such as the Open Science Framework or a clinical-trial registry) before you collect or look at the data, with a timestamp. It does not involve a journal. Its value is simple: it lets everyone see what you planned, so they can tell your confirmatory tests from your after-the-fact ones.
Registered Reports go further
A Registered Report adds peer review to that plan, in two stages:
- Stage 1 — you submit the introduction, methods and analysis plan before collecting data. Reviewers assess whether the question is important and the design is sound.
- In-principle acceptance — if the plan passes, the journal commits to publishing the completed study regardless of the outcome, provided you follow the approved protocol.
- Stage 2 — you carry out the study and submit the results and discussion. Review now checks that you followed the plan, not whether the results are exciting.
Why it works
This format defuses three well-documented problems at once:
- Publication bias — null results get published too, because acceptance was decided before the outcome.
- p-hacking — trying analyses until something is "significant" is blocked by a pre-approved plan.
- HARKing — hypothesising after the results are known is prevented, because the hypotheses were registered first.
When it fits
Registered Reports suit hypothesis-testing studies where the design can be specified in advance — trials, confirmatory experiments, planned analyses of existing data. They fit exploratory or discovery-led work less naturally, and that is fine: not every study needs the format. But for confirmatory research, preregistering your plan is one of the simplest ways to make your eventual paper more trustworthy — and harder for a reviewer to doubt.