Commentary on Publishing Systematic Reviews as Registered Reports

Registered Reports are a novel approach to publishing research that involves two rounds of peer review, one before and one after the study is conducted, that is starting to be used for systematic reviews, as in this special series. In the commentary, we briefly provide an overview of Registered Reports, including potential benefits (e.g., increased transparency, increased credibility due to constraining researcher flexibility, increased study quality and rigor due to prospective feedback from reviewers) and challenges (e.g., over-specifying exploratory elements of the review in the stage-1 manuscript, delayed or lack of completion after in-principle acceptance of the proposed study) for systematic reviews. We conclude with recommendations for addressing these challenges and for future research to inform the use of Registered Reports for systematic reviews.