Research transparency

3ie produces research – whether in-house or through grants or contracts – that clearly and precisely documents the data and methods used in the analysis and the materials used to conduct the study. 3ie’s Research Transparency Policy articulates our commitment to research transparency and aligns our policy with the transparency policies of our key funders.

Guidelines for 3ie-supported researchers

Our research transparency policy requires 3ie researchers to take the following actions:

• Preregister their studies in the appropriate registry. For instance, impact evaluations must be registered in RIDIE.
• Develop a pre-analysis plan before starting the study.
• Ensure all materials supporting the claims made in reports, publications or other communication are available for purposes of replication, including push button replication by 3ie, and reuse of data.
• Provide a comprehensive and transparent description of study context, design, analysis methods and results in study reports to ensure studies are reproducible and useful.
• Adhere to appropriate citation of any data, programme code and other methods.
• Provide unrestricted access to and reuse of all published research funded, in whole or in part, by 3ie.

This policy applies to any work that we may fund or carry out in-house, regardless of the funder or funding mechanism.

We welcome your feedback on this policy

Useful resources

Here is a curated list of websites and guidelines related to research transparency useful for researchers:

• Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in Social Sciences is an international network of distinguished researchers and faculty members from 10 different institutions providing training and resources on adoption of best practices in research transparency.
• Center for Open Science helps researchers in increasing reproducibility of their work by adopting the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines.
• Innovations for Poverty Action: Research Transparency Initiative promotes sharing of information such data, statistical code publicly.
• American Journal of Political Science is dedicated to increasing the replicability of studies; this includes guidelines for preparing replication files.