Research Resources
The standards, frameworks and tools that good research work is held to. Use them to judge a proposal, scope a project, or check a deliverable.
These are not our resources. Every link below points to an independent organisation or standard, maintained by someone other than Researchor. None of them endorse Researchor, and we have no affiliation with any of them. They are listed because they are what the field actually uses.
Reporting guidelines
Checklists that define what a complete write-up contains for a given study design. Journals increasingly require them, and an expert should be working to the relevant one from the start.
- EQUATOR NetworkThe index of reporting guidelines across every study design. Start here if you are unsure which checklist applies.
- PRISMAReporting standard for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, including the flow diagram reviewers expect.
- CONSORTReporting standard for randomised controlled trials.
- STROBEReporting standard for observational studies — cohort, case-control and cross-sectional.
- COREQReporting standard for qualitative research using interviews and focus groups.
Research ethics and integrity
The frameworks that define misconduct, authorship and publication ethics. These are the standards our Academic Guidelines are built on.
- COPE — Committee on Publication EthicsGuidance and flowcharts on authorship disputes, plagiarism, data fabrication and correction of the record.
- ICMJE authorship criteriaThe four criteria that define an author. Useful when deciding whether a contribution warrants authorship.
- Declaration of HelsinkiEthical principles for medical research involving human subjects.
- Singapore Statement on Research IntegrityA concise, widely adopted statement of researcher responsibilities.
Methods and analysis
Open references for study design, synthesis and statistical practice.
- Cochrane HandbookThe standard reference for systematic review methodology, free to read online.
- R ProjectOpen-source statistical computing environment, with the CRAN package ecosystem.
- Open Science FrameworkFree platform for preregistration, protocol sharing and research data management.
- FAIR data principlesFindable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable — the standard increasingly expected by funders.
Finding and citing literature
Open tools for search, screening and reference management.
- PubMedFree index of biomedical and life-sciences literature.
- Directory of Open Access JournalsVetted index of open-access journals — useful for checking a journal's legitimacy before submitting.
- ZoteroFree, open-source reference manager with word-processor integration.
- CrossrefDOI registry. Use it to verify a reference actually exists — essential when AI tools were involved.
Where Researchor fits
None of the above replaces doing the work. Researchor exists for the point where you know which standard applies but need someone who has actually applied it — a methodologist who has run the design, a statistician who has fitted the model, a reviewer who has screened to PRISMA before.
What it does not do is produce work for you to submit as your own. That distinction is set out in full in the Academic Guidelines, with worked examples of requests on each side of the line.