All submissions must meet the minimum requirements outlined in the journal policy to adhere to international ethics standards in research and publication.

Submissions to the Lifecycle Journal can be made via the relevant OSF Lifecycle Submission Registry. Submit your work here to OSF Registry. See below for a description of submission types and information regarding submission components and declarations.

There are two submission pathways for Lifecycle Journal: as a Research Plan at the research planning stage before the research has been conducted (includes preregistration, protocol, materials), and as an Outcomes Report at the outcomes reporting stage (includes manuscript, data, materials, code). Authors are strongly encouraged to submit work as a Research Plan to make the most of Lifecycle Journal evaluation across the project lifecycle, but this is not required. If a study has already been completed the work can be submitted as an Outcomes Report.

Research Plan

Research Plan submissions report a study’s design and analysis plan in sufficient detail to clearly distinguish planned from unplanned research. The Research Plan must include the study rationale, timeline, proposed methodology for data collection and analysis, and relevant ethics approval for the planned work. If the Research Plan will use existing data, authors must include a statement describing what is known about the data. Where there is a potential risk of bias due to prior observation of the data, authors will need to outline active steps to address this risk.

The reported methods should include information about the study design, including sampling, measurement, anticipated sensitivity analysis, robustness checks, and any other analysis plans, and should be written with a sufficient degree of clarity and detail such that other researchers could reproduce the procedure and analysis.

Research Plan submissions must include an abstract, a Declarations section (see Study Components and Declarations, below) and a completed Study Design Template (found here), clearly articulating the link between the research question(s), hypothes(es), sampling plan(s), analysis plan(s), and anticipated interpretation given different outcomes. Research Plan submissions do not otherwise require specific formatting but may be organized into sections such as Introduction, Hypotheses/Questions, Methods, References, and any figures or tables. The PCI-RR evaluation service is a primary contributor to peer review of Research Plans, please see their criteria for Stage 1 submissions.

Authors are encouraged to refer to the EQUATOR network for a comprehensive list of reporting guidelines for health research. Completed checklists can be included as Supporting Information files.

Research Plan Requirements:

• Research Plan submissions must include ethics approval for studies involving humans and/or animals and adhere to journal policy on research ethics.
• Clinical trial protocols must be registered in a publicly accessible database (e.g. ClinicalTrials.gov) and the associated clinical trial registration number must be included in the abstract.
• Abstract (maximum of 300 words)
• Completed Study Design Table is required for evaluation by PCI-RR

Outcomes Report

Outcomes Report submissions report the outcomes of original research after the study has been completed and include the paper, data, materials, code, and registration if available. Outcomes Reports should address a clearly defined research question and must include an abstract, prospective ethics approval for the completed work, and a completed Declarations section (see Study Components and Declarations, below). Outcomes Reports do not have required formatting but may include the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, in addition to References, and figures and tables. There is no limit on the length of Outcomes Report submissions.

Authors are encouraged to refer to the EQUATOR network for a comprehensive list of reporting guidelines for health research.

Outcomes Report Requirements:

• Abstract (max. 300 words)
• Submissions must include prospective ethics approval for studies involving humans and/or animals, and adhere to journal policy on research ethics.
• If the study described was previously published in Lifecycle Journal as a Research Plan or submitted to a public registry as a pre-registration or registration:
  • Include the registration number in the abstract
  • Reference the previous work
  • Note any deviations from the Research Plan or preregistration and discuss the reason for deviation in your Discussion section
• Where Outcomes Reports report findings from or associated with clinical trials, the clinical trial protocol must be registered in a publicly accessible database (e.g. ClinicalTrials.gov) and the associated clinical trial registration number must be included in the abstract. Findings associated with clinical trials must also include a completed CONSORT checklist as a Supporting Information file.

Lifecycle Journal offers a dynamic community-led collection of human, machine, and empirical credibility assessments. We aim for submissions to receive assessment from one or more evaluation services within our community, depending on scope and suitability. Each evaluation service may have different requirements and criteria for inclusion. To allow assessment of your work by the broadest possible collection of services, we strongly encourage authors to adhere to best practices in open science by including all study components listed below that are relevant to your submission.

During the research and development phase of Lifecycle Journal (2025-2026), submissions that do not meet the minimum requirements for review by at least one human peer review service will not be published. More information about our evaluation service partners can be found here[link to evaluation services page] and more information about our editorial process can be found here[link to editorial process page].

During the submission process authors will provide information regarding the study components listed below by completing a Declarations checklist. Authors will provide the location of the data/information (e.g. name of publicly accessible database) and relevant retrieval information (e.g. accession number). If the study component is not included in the submission, authors must provide a statement explaining why not. The information in these statements should also be included in the manuscript itself, at the end of the main body of text under the heading “Declarations”.

Pre-registration, Registration, or Protocol

Authors are encouraged to prospectively register their study design or protocols in a publicly accessible database (e.g. ClinicalTrials.gov, PROSPERO, OSF) before initiating data collection or analysis. For some types of research, such as clinical trials, this may be required by law.

Please note that, as part of the Lifecycle Journal submission process, all submissions will be registered on the Open Science Framework in the Lifecycle Journal submission registry.

Data, Materials, and Code Availability and Sharing

To maintain high standards of research reproducibility and to promote reuse, all data, materials, and code generated or used for the research that is legally and ethically permissible to archive or share should be archived and shared in an independent repository. This includes all variables, treatment conditions, and observations described in the manuscript. Best practices also include providing a protocol with a full accounting of the materials and procedures used to collect, pre–process, clean, generate and analyze the data that would enable it to be independently reproduced by other researchers.

Data, materials, and codes, should be archived in accessible formats and according to the relevant reporting standards, unless there are compelling legal or ethical reasons to archive only under restricted or protected access. The provision of sharing data, materials, and code should comply with FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). All analyses should be reproducible (re-running code on the data should produce the same reported result), and the methodology should be described and shared in sufficient detail to permit replication attempts.

Ethics Statement

All submissions must meet the minimum requirements outlined in the journal policy to adhere to international ethics standards in research and publication. Research involving animals or human subjects must have prospective approval from the appropriate ethics review board.

Competing Interests Statement

All authors must declare potential personal, financial, and business competing interests at submission. These could include, but are not limited to, ownership of stocks or shares, paid employment or consultancy, board membership, acting as an expert witness, or personal relationships.

“The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:

• Financial
  • (author initials): (describe any financial support, employment, stock ownership, consultancies, etc.)
• Non-financial/personal
  • (author initials): (describe any non-financial relationships that could be perceived as influencing the research)
• Intellectual Property
  • (author initials): (describe any patents, trademarks, or copyrights related to the work)
• Affiliations
  • (author initials): (any relevant affiliations or roles that may present a conflict)”

If the authors do not have any competing interests to declare, please use the following statement: “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.”

Financial Disclosure Statement

Each author must individually declare all sources of funding received for the research submitted to the journal. This information includes the name of granting agencies, grant numbers, and a description of each funder’s role. If the funder has played no role in the research, this must be stated as well.