Registered Reports

Yes, journals using a double-anonymized peer review workflow can also opt for publishing Registered Reports. The stage I article is in that case reviewed double-anonymously, and the author names will only be visible to reviewers upon publication of the article. The stage II article is submitted with an “in principle acceptance (IPA)” guarantee, hence the most crucial part of the research is still double-anonymized, thereby minimizing reviewer bias.

Whether or not to submit a Registered Report to a double-anonymous journal is up to the author, who can weigh the benefits of increased reproducibility / replicability, transparency and chance to receive early feedback on the study design against the partial loss of anonymity of the peer review process.

Both the stage I and stage II article will receive a definite volume and issue / article number upon acceptance and are fully citable the moment they are published. If the stage II article is published, researchers can choose for themselves whether the stage I or stage II article is the most relevant – or both – to cite, depending on the context of the reference. It is not expected nor observed in other journals that have been publishing Registered Reports for some time that the Impact Factor is negatively affected by this.

No, it is not the same. A stage I article contains an introduction, hypothesis and proposed methods to investigate that hypothesis and also anticipates having a second article associated with it, which will show the results and conclusion of the research. A methods or protocol article is a standalone article that describes a certain method or protocol that can be applied to various research questions, and also doesn’t predict any results or other outcomes.

One of the benefits of publishing a Registered Report is to receive early feedback from knowledge peers on the research design, so that authors can optimize it before conducting the actual research. As the article type includes an “in principle acceptance (IPA)” (of results, discussion and conclusion independent of outcomes), it guards against instances in which scooping may lead to an inability to publish your work in a journal of your preference. Furthermore, by putting your research idea and methods in the peer reviewed literature, you stake your claim to the idea. Overall, the Registered Reports publishing model mitigates the effects of scooping rather than promoting it.

This is one of the benefits of publishing research as a Registered Report; pre-registering the planned research allows authors to publish negative or unexcepted findings that normally would not be published. A recent review in the field of psychology¹ found that 96% of reported results in traditional article types were positive (i.e., hypothesis-confirming), compared to only 44% in Registered Reports, showing the article type’s effectiveness in allowing authors to present a full picture of their research. We highly encourage the publication of negative results, as it will help other researchers to finetune their studies by knowing what did not work, preventing waste of both time and resources. Our reviewer guidelines/editor guidelines explicitly state that manuscripts should not be rejected for not containing positive findings alone.

Authors are allowed to make some amendments to the study design during the experiment, as long as they can clearly explain to the journal editors why this was needed, and authors ask the handling editor for approval for these changes before preparing their stage II article. If approved, they should add a summary of the changes in their methods or design section of their stage II manuscript, so it is clear to readers what has, and why it changed. The two articles will be linked together online so readers can easily go back to the stage I article to read the original and detailed methods.

Yes, while this is not encouraged, it is possible to publish a stage II article in a different Elsevier journal. We will make sure to link the two articles online for ease of reference. Please note that we won’t be able to offer the APC discount for the stage II article in that case.

Yes, replication studies are well suited to be published as Registered Reports. Publishing a replication study as a Registered Reports article encourages direct replications regardless of effect size or statistical significance, fostering a culture of transparency and reproducibility in psychological research. By using the submission and review process for replication studies, this model promotes constructive peer review, cumulative estimation of effect sizes, and broader awareness of methodological subtleties, ultimately advancing the reliability and credibility of scientific findings in psychology.

Registered Reports may not be the most suitable article type for every kind of research. This may be especially true for research that is not empirical in nature or hypothesis-driven (e.g., some types of qualitative research and exploratory research).

This depends on the data policy of the journal that you are submitting to; for most Elsevier journals, making research data available is strongly encouraged but not mandated, for some it is. You will find this information in the guide for authors of the journal.

This option is not encouraged but possible – in that case, we ask authors to submit a summary of their study as a "terminated registration" to the journal that has published the stage I article. If the reason is that the proposed methods are not adequately suited to study the proposed question, authors are asked to include pilot data to demonstrate that the question is unanswerable with the currently available technology. This termination notice will be published alongside the published stage I article, which will remain online as any other published article.