A narrative of crisis has led to increased efforts to improve the reproducibility, transparency, and integrity of science lately (Baker, 2016)⁠. Reports mention questionable research practices, such as p-hacking or deliberately not publishing contradictory results (Fanelli, 2018; Peng, 2015)⁠. The Open Science movement provides researchers with useful tools to preregister studies (Bosnjak et al., 2022)⁠, disseminate their research data (e.g., (https://osf.io), and incentivizes them to publish formalized hypotheses for collaborative research projects (The Hypository, Moeller et al., 2022)⁠.

This communication discusses the advantages of using study preregistration and data repositories during the publication process. Generally, the secondary advantages of study preregistration include editor commitment and the possibility for reviewers to inspect study materials, such as protocols and datasets, potentially leading to a more efficient review process.

For researchers, it is important to contextualize practical considerations in the process of preregistration follow-up (Claesen et al., 2021)⁠. Furthermore, study replication has provided opportunities to improve reproducibility, replicability, and statistical power in fields, such as cognitive neuroscience and developmental neuroimaging (Klapwijk et al., 2021)⁠. Experiences among researchers with study preregistration vary and the usefulness of the process is questioned by researchers in some fields (Pham & Oh, 2021; Sarafoglou et al., 2022)⁠.

Discussions with experts can explore whether the notion of crisis in science is an appropriate narrative (Fanelli, 2018)⁠ or whether these recent developments rather represent paradigmatic shifts in the research and publication process that authors can harness to improve collaborative research productivity.