BMC Biology has become the first dedicated biology journal to accept Registered Reports. This innovative approach to publishing allows authors to submit their rationale and methods for peer-review before any experiments are conducted. Articles that pass peer-review will be accepted in principle meaning that, as long as the study is completed in accordance with the pre-registered methodology, the article will be published following a second round of peer-review.
Registered Reports shift the emphasis from research results, to the scientific questions being asked and the strength of the study design. The goal is to make it easier for high-quality research to be published regardless of the outcome, allowing researchers to take a proactive approach towards improving transparency and reproducibility in science. Authors will also benefit from having their experimental designs peer-reviewed, providing the opportunity to respond to expert feedback prior to conducting experiments.
Registered Reports differ from initiatives such as results-free peer review, which is being piloted with the journal BMC Psychology, where the experiments are conducted as usual but the peer reviewers are blinded to the results. Both of these initiatives are important options that BioMed Central is testing through specific journals to better understand their impact on the scientific record.
BMC Biology will be the first of five BioMed Central journals to embrace Registered Reports, with four other journals to follow later this year. The Registered Reports publishing format is supported by the Center for Open Science (COS).
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