Hello,

I know there are ways to register a systematic review such as a Cochrane review, so that others don't end up conducting the same review at the same time. But is there a way to register other review types - perhaps a systematic review that isn't a Cochrane one - or maybe even narrative/systematic hybrid review papers?

Basically, I want to check that someone isn't already working on reviewing the same body of literature before I start!

I am unsure about registering a review, to make sure some else isn't doing it. However, you can submit a presubmission inquiry to the journal to see if they are interested in publishing it before fully writing it. Generally for this, you just give a paper outline and maybe figures and tables. Some journal requests these (Generally high impact journals) and won't take unsolicited review papers. Hopefully that helps

Hi Tudor, Hope you're well.

How about writing it and putting it up on BioArxiv s soon as the first draft is complete?

I have never heard of pre-registering review papers.

Nead is right, you can email an editor in advance with a summary to see if they are interested in publishing it. It is virtually impossible to determine if someone is working on something similar but you can possibly find someone who will publish it regardless

Thanks for all the advice and tips and for taking the time to reply to my post. Much appreciated. Emailing pote rial editor is a great idea and I'll look more into that.

There's a couple of databases I've also found where people provide a protocol of their review and it gets a unique ID number. The databases are searchable so you can check them too. So far I've only found them for clinical psychology and health, but since it's a bunch of interventions I'm thinking of reviewing I might upload details there. I guess there is no guarantee that another group would also upload their protocol, so someone could still beat me to it. I'll look into getting it out as a preprint ASAP too as Jamie suggested. Cheers!

*potential editor