Registering your systematic review on PROSPERO is one of those steps that feels like paperwork and is actually a safeguard. It creates a public, time-stamped record of your plan before you have seen your results, which is the single clearest way to show that your review was not shaped after the fact. Many journals now expect it, and skipping it invites exactly the suspicion registration exists to prevent.
This guide covers what PROSPERO is, whether your review qualifies, when to register, and how to do it, plus what to do if your review is not eligible.
PROSPERO is the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews. It is run by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York and was launched in 2011 as the first international register for systematic review protocols. Registration is free and open to researchers worldwide.
The purpose is transparency. By recording the key features of your planned review, the question, the eligibility criteria, the search sources, the outcomes, and the analysis, before you complete the work, PROSPERO lets anyone later compare what you planned against what you reported. It also helps the research community see which reviews are already underway, reducing wasted duplication.
This is where people get tripped up, so be clear on it before you invest time in the form.
PROSPERO registers systematic reviews with a health-related outcome. That covers reviews of the effects of interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, or monitor health conditions, as long as there is a health-related outcome. Reviews in health and social care fall within scope.
Two important exclusions: scoping reviews and literature reviews are not eligible for PROSPERO. Their purpose does not fit the register's model, which is built around reviews that answer a health question. If you are running a scoping review, you will need an alternative register, covered below.
There is also a timing limit on eligibility. A review can be registered as long as it has not progressed beyond the completion of data extraction. Ideally you register earlier, before formal screening, but the hard cutoff is data extraction. Once you have finished extracting data, it is too late to register on PROSPERO, because the register is prospective by design.
Register before you begin formal screening against your eligibility criteria. That is the point at which registration does its real job, locking in your plan while your results are still unknown.
Running a quick preliminary or scoping search to gauge feasibility before registering is fine. What you should not do is complete your formal screening and data extraction and then register, because at that stage the record no longer proves your plan predated your findings. Prospective registration is the whole point; retrospective registration, where a register even allows it, carries far less weight.
The process is designed to be straightforward, largely through structured fields and drop-down menus.
1. Create an account. Register for a PROSPERO account through the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Reviews are tied to a named contact who is responsible for the accuracy of the record.
2. Nominate a named contact. This should be the principal investigator or lead reviewer. Having a single named contact per review is deliberate; it discourages the same review being registered twice by different team members.
3. Complete the required dataset. The form captures the key attributes of your review: the title, the question, the anticipated timeline, the databases and sources you will search, your eligibility criteria, your primary and secondary outcomes, your risk-of-bias approach, and your planned synthesis. Fill these from your protocol, which is why writing the protocol first makes registration mostly a matter of transcription. If you have not written one yet, see how to write a systematic review protocol.
4. Submit for checking. Your submission is checked against the register's scope and for clarity before it goes public. The CRD team may accept it, return it to you for clarification, or reject it if it falls outside scope. This is why confirming eligibility upfront matters; a scoping review submitted here will be turned away.
5. Receive your registration number. Once approved, your review is published on the register with a unique registration number. You cite this number in your protocol and final manuscript.
6. Keep it updated. PROSPERO records are meant to be living. Update the status as your review progresses, record any justified changes to your plan, and add a link to the final report once the review is published. Keeping the record current is part of the named contact's responsibility.
If you are running a scoping review, a literature review, or a non-health review that falls outside PROSPERO's scope, you still have options for prospective registration. Alternatives include INPLASY and the Research Registry, which are specific to systematic reviews, and general-purpose registers such as the Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries and protocols.io, which accept a wide range of study types including scoping reviews. Registering somewhere, even when PROSPERO is not the right home, preserves the transparency benefit of a time-stamped plan.
Registering too late. Once you have completed data extraction, you have missed the PROSPERO window. Register before formal screening, well ahead of the cutoff.
Assuming scoping reviews qualify. They do not. Trying to register a scoping review on PROSPERO wastes your time and the reviewers'. Use OSF or another suitable register instead.
Registering from an incomplete plan. The form asks for your eligibility criteria, outcomes, and analysis. If you have not thought these through, write the protocol first. Registration is not the place to figure out your methods.
Never updating the record. A registration that is never updated to reflect the review's progress or final publication is a loose end. Keep it current and link the finished review.
Undisclosed deviations. If your final review departs from the registered plan, disclose and justify the change. The value of registration comes from the comparison between plan and outcome, and silent deviations destroy it.
Is PROSPERO registration free? Yes. PROSPERO is free to use and open to researchers worldwide.
Can I register a scoping review on PROSPERO? No. Scoping reviews and literature reviews are not eligible. Use an alternative such as OSF Registries, which accepts a broader range of review types.
When is it too late to register on PROSPERO? Once your review has progressed beyond the completion of data extraction. Ideally you register before formal screening begins.
Is PROSPERO registration mandatory? It is not universally mandatory, but many journals require or strongly expect it, and it is standard good practice for eligible reviews. It protects you against the suspicion that you changed your plan after seeing results.
What do I need before I register? Essentially a completed protocol. The form asks for your question, eligibility criteria, search sources, outcomes, risk-of-bias approach, and analysis plan, all of which come from the protocol.
Can I change my review after registering? Yes, with justification. Update the record and disclose any deviations in the final report. Documenting justified changes is part of using the register properly.
PROSPERO registration turns your plan into a public, time-stamped record, which is your strongest evidence that the review was not shaped by its results. Confirm your review is eligible first, it must have a health-related outcome, and scoping and literature reviews do not qualify, register before you finish data extraction and ideally before formal screening, complete the fields from your protocol, and keep the record updated through to publication.
If PROSPERO does not fit your review type, register elsewhere rather than skipping registration altogether. Either way, the goal is the same: a plan on the record before the answer is known. For the plan that feeds it, see how to write a systematic review protocol.
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