Registered report
A study peer-reviewed and accepted before any data are collected.
What it means
A registered report is a publication format in which a study's introduction, hypotheses, and detailed methods are peer-reviewed and provisionally accepted before data collection begins. Because the journal commits to publishing the completed study regardless of whether results are significant, the format neutralizes publication bias and removes the incentive for p-hacking and HARKing. Reviewers improve the design when changes can still be made, rather than critiquing a finished study whose results may have driven its framing. It is among the most structurally powerful open-science reforms, separating the evaluation of a study's importance and rigor from the direction of its outcome.
Examples
A team's hypotheses and analysis plan are accepted in principle; the paper is published whether or not the predicted effect emerges.
A reviewer spots that the planned sample is far too small to detect the effect and says so while the team can still recruit more — not in a rejection letter two years later.
Because the hypotheses are on record before any data arrive, a team that stumbles on an unexpected pattern must label it exploratory rather than present it as what they predicted.
First described in Chris Chambers and colleagues (2013); Cortex journal.