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What’s next for Registered Reports?

Reviewing and accepting study plans before results are known can counter perverse incentives. Chris Chambers sets out three ways to improve the approach.
  1. Chris Chambers

    1. Chris Chambers is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cardiff University, UK.

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Illustration by David Parkins

What part of a research study — hypotheses, methods, results, or discussion — should remain beyond a scientist’s control? The answer, of course, is the results: the part that matters most for publishing in prestigious journals and advancing careers. This paradox means that the careful scepticism required to avoid massaging data or skewing analysis is pitted against the drive to identify eye-catching outcomes. Unbiased, negative and complicated findings lose out to cherry-picked highlights that can bring prominent articles, grant funding, promotion and esteem.

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Nature 573, 187-189 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02674-6

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