Pre-registration and Protocols

Pre-registration and protocols are where a record of your hypotheses and methodology are reported before undertaking any analysis.


This helps combat publication bias, and improves the transparency of research. It also can avoid allegations such as ‘p-hacking’, HARKing (‘hypotheses after results known’) , and fishing https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01307-2 . Pre-registration is common in Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs), but is equally important in observational studies. 

A pre-registration document covers topics such as:

  • Study aims and hypotheses
  • Research design
  • Data collection 
  • Data handling
  • Analysis plan


Pre-registration is supported by sites such as the Open Science Framework, or published in peer-reviewed journals. 


OSF contains a number of resources for creating a pre-registration document, including a tutorial https://help.osf.io/article/158-create-a-preregistration and template (https://osf.io/jea94)


https://www.protocols.io/ provides an online collaborative tool for creating protocols.

The “What, Why, and How of Preregistration” Webinar (A. DeHaven & S. Bowman) provides a more detailed overview of preregistration

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