Improving bioscience research reporting: The ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal research

In the last decade the number of bioscience journals has increased enormously , with many filling specialised niches reflecting new disciplines and technologies. The emergence of open-access journals has revolutionised the publication process, maximising the availability of research data. Nevertheless, a wealth of evidence shows that across many areas, the reporting of biomedical research is often inadequate, leading to the view that even if the science is sound, in many cases the publications themselves are not ''fit for purpose,'' meaning that incomplete reporting of relevant information effectively renders many publications of limited value as instruments to inform policy or clinical and scientific practice [1–21]. A recent review of clinical research showed that there is considerable cumulative waste of financial resources at all stages of the research process, including as a result of publications that are unusable due to poor reporting [22]. It is unlikely that this issue is confined to clinical research [2–14,16–20]. Failure to describe research methods and to report results appropriately therefore has potential scientific, ethical, and economic implications for the entire research process and the reputation of those involved in it. This is particularly true for animal research, one of the most controversial areas of science. The largest and most comprehensive review of published animal research undertaken to date, to our knowledge, has highlighted serious omissions in the way research using animals is reported [5]. The survey, commissioned by the National Centre for the Replacement , Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), a UK Government-sponsored scientific organisation , found that only 59% of the 271 randomly chosen articles assessed stated the hypothesis or objective of the study, and the number and characteristics of the animals used (i.e., species/strain, sex, and age/weight). Most of the papers surveyed did not report using randomisation (87%) or blinding (86%) to reduce bias in animal selection and outcome assessment. Only 70% of the publications that used statistical methods fully described them and presented the results with a measure of precision or variability [5]. These findings are a cause for concern and are consistent with reviews of many research areas, including clinical studies, published in recent years [2–22]. Scrutiny by scientific peers has long been the mainstay of ''quality control'' for the publication process. The way that experiments are reported, in terms of the level of detail of methods and the presentation of key results, is crucial to the peer review …