Registered Reports as the default pathway for confirmatory publication
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: By rewarding speed, volume, and coherent positive narratives, traditional publishing incentivizes questionable scientific practices and analytic flexibility. The latter especially contributes to blurring the distinction between exploration and confirmation, which inflates the apparent strength of confirmatory claims. This systemic issue has gone unchecked for decades, leaving the scientific community with a body of scholarly literature that is unreliable and lacking validity. Registered Reports (RRs) address problematic publishing practices by requiring a priori registration of confirmatory tests, which is peer-reviewed before the research begins (stage 1). The editorial acceptance of a stage 1 plan establishes a commitment to publication regardless of research outcomes. Publication remains, nonetheless, contingent on a second peer review and editorial scrutiny (stage 2) to verify that the approved plan was followed, all deviations were transparently disclosed and justified, confirmatory and exploratory claims are clearly delineated, and the integrity of the design was maintained. Meta-scientific comparisons indicate that RRs reduce outcome-based publication bias and improve methodological rigor without compromising perceived novelty. By making accepted RR protocols and their review history citable research outputs, RRs also strengthen recognition for peer-review work. In this perspective, we argue that RRs should become the primary mode of confirmatory publication moving forward.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: Marta Topor, Joshua Silberstein Bamford, Marina Bazhydai, Zhang Chen, Hu Chuan-Peng, Clare Conry-Murray, Thiago Leiros Costa, Antica Culina, Mario Dalmaso, Zoltan Dienes, Daniel J. Dunleavy, Grace Edwards, Mahmoud Medhat Elsherif, Luis Eudave, Thomas Rhys Evans, Victoria B. Fendel, Sarahanne Field, Adrien Alejandro Fillon, Pablo Ezequiel Flores-Kanter, Benedetta Franceschiello, Gidon T. Frischkorn, Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Giacomo Guidali, Bianca de Haan, Anthony Harris, Helena Hartmann, Lobna Hassan, Tamara Kalandadze, Hansika Kapoor, Lilla Nora Kovacs, William Leo Donald Krenzer, CRISTINA LASTRES-LÓPEZ, Pierrick Laulan, Gemma Learmonth, Mateo Leganes-Fonteneau, Jon Haitz Legarreta, Jaroslaw Roman Lelonkiewicz, Juan David Leongómez, Giulia Liberati, Zhicheng Lin, Donald R Lynam, Erin Macartney, Alexandra Masciantonio, Giulia Mattavelli, Julien Mayor, Valeria Mazza, Robert D McIntosh, Katherine Moore, Margaret Jane Moore, Louis J Moses, Hugo Najberg, Stephan Nebe, David A. Neequaye, Mariam Olugbodi, Marietta Papadatou-Pastou, Francisco J. Parada, Charlotte Rebecca Pennington, Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Leonardo Alexandre Peyré-Tartaruga, Anna K Porter, Madeleine Pownall, Céline Provins, Benoit Pujol, Ana Belen Ramos-Hryb, Tobias R. Rebholz, Niv Reggev, Alejandra Rossi, Chhavi Sachdeva, Eduardo S. A. Santos, Patrick E. Savage, Julia Schnepf, Sarah Fiona Schoch, Vishnu Sreekumar, James Steele, Moin Syed, Birgit Szabo, Claudio Tennie, Erick Turner, David C. Vaidis, Marieke K. van Vugt, Marlene Wiart, Yuki Yamada, Mark T. Young, Anoushiravan Zahedi, Yikang Zhang, Russell A. Poldrack, Christopher D Chambers, Oscar Esteban
Language: English
Subfield: Library and Information Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222220593