Plan & Design
Design Your Research Journey
Research planning isn’t about following a rigid checklist—it’s about building your workflow. This phase of the research cycle brings together resources, ideas, and practices that help you make informed decisions before you begin.
What you’ll find here: Options for exploring prior work, frameworks for documenting your plans, and tools that support transparent, reproducible research.
Before diving into planning, these lectures provide essential context on research credibility and reproducibility:
- Replicability Crisis (1h) - Understanding threats to replicability
- Credible Research (40 min) - Introduction to open research practices
- Assessing Research Replicability (1h) - Evaluating replication studies (optional)
- Data Simulation in R (2h) - Power analysis through simulation
- Advanced Power Analyses (6h) - Complex simulation designs (optional)
- 8-Step Checklist for Credible Research by Nosek et al. - Practical steps for improving research credibility
Exploring Existing Work
Many researchers start by reviewing what resources and prior work exist in their domain.
Literature & Data
Common exploration activities:
- Systematic literature reviews
- Searching data repositories for existing datasets
- Reviewing prior meta-analyses
- Identifying measurement instruments
Code & Tools
Researchers often look for:
- Analysis scripts and pipelines
- Validated software tools
- Standard protocols and workflows
- Reusable research compendia
Community Resources
Helpful community connections:
- Discipline-specific networks
- Methodological expertise
- Collaborative opportunities
- Shared infrastructure
Funding & Support
Resources for research funding:
- Grant planning guidance
- Funder open research requirements
- Funding opportunities for open science
- Budget planning for infrastructure
Introduction to Zotero (1h) - Learn to organize literature with a free, open-source reference manager that integrates with Word, RStudio, and Google Docs.
Planning Framework Options
Different research contexts call for different planning approaches. Below are common frameworks researchers incorporate into their lab handbooks.
Preregistration
Many researchers document their hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans before data collection. Preregistration platforms allow time-stamping these decisions.
Considerations for preregistration:
- Research questions and hypotheses
- Sample size and stopping rules
- Variables and measures
- Statistical analysis plan
- Handling of missing data
How to Prepare a Preregistration (2h) - Step-by-step guide to creating preregistrations using OSF and other platforms.
Helpful templates & guides:
- Pre-analysis checklist by David McKenzie
- Pre-analysis plan template by Alejandro Ganimian
- OSF Guide to Preregistration - Step-by-step instructions
Registered Reports
Registered Reports are a publishing format where peer review occurs before data collection. If accepted, the journal commits to publishing regardless of results.
Benefits:
- Eliminates publication bias
- Separates hypothesis quality from results
- Provides in-principle acceptance before conducting research
Resources:
- What are Registered Reports? - COS overview and rationale
- Journals accepting Registered Reports - Growing list of participating journals
- Author & Reviewer Guidelines - Templates and guidance for submissions
Power Analysis
Statistical power analysis helps determine appropriate sample sizes for detecting effects of interest.
Common elements:
- Expected effect size (from literature or pilot data)
- Desired statistical power (often 80-95%)
- Significance threshold (often α = 0.05)
- Analysis method (t-test, ANOVA, regression, etc.)
- Introduction to Data Simulation in R (2h) - Create simulated datasets to test your analysis plans
- Simulations for Advanced Power Analyses (6h, can pick specific chapters) - Power analysis for complex statistical models including mixed models and factorial designs
- Power Analysis Workshop by Felix Schönbrodt - Comprehensive workshop materials on simulation-based power analysis
StaBLab (LMU Statistical Consulting Unit) offers support for pre-analysis planning and power analysis.
- Contact: kontakt@stablab.stat.uni-muenchen.de
- Website: stablab.stat.uni-muenchen.de
- What they offer: Consultation on study design, power analysis, and statistical methods
Data Management Plans (DMPs) outline how research data will be handled throughout and after a project.
FAIR Data Management Tutorial (2h) - Comprehensive guide to managing data following FAIR principles, including a detailed section on creating Data Management Plans (~1h).
LMU University Library provides the RDMO tool for creating funder-compliant Data Management Plans.
- Contact: rdm@ub.uni-muenchen.de
- What they offer: RDMO tool access, DMP templates for major funders, personalized support for DMP creation
- Note: Many institutions and funders provide DMP templates. Some researchers also use tools like DMPonline or DMPTool.
DMPs may include:
- Types and formats
- Expected volume
- Naming conventions
- Storage locations
- Backup strategies
- Access controls
- Repository selection
- License choices
- Embargo periods
- Consent procedures
- Anonymization methods
- Compliance requirements
Depending on the research type, various ethical and compliance considerations may apply.
Common approvals and frameworks:
- Institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee approval
- Informed consent procedures
- Data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA)
- Animal welfare protocols (where applicable)
- Biosafety and environmental safety reviews
Consent form templates for open data sharing:
- German templates - Dyadic and non-dyadic experiments (OSC collection)
- English templates - COS Reproducible Research collection
Many labs maintain a centralized log of all ethics approvals, consent forms, and compliance certifications for easy reference.
LMU Ethics Committee reviews all research involving human participants.
- Website: Ethics Committee Information
- Timeline: ~4 weeks for initial review, ~1 week for revisions, ~3 weeks for final approval
- Note: Only the Principal Investigator (PI) can submit ethics applications
LMU Guidelines for Good Scientific Practice (2023) establish standards for all research at LMU:
- Reproducible methods must be used
- Complete documentation to enable replication
- Data, materials, and software must follow FAIR principles
- Research outputs preserved for 10 years
- German regulation (legally binding)
Tools & Resources
The open research ecosystem offers numerous platforms and tools to support planning activities. Tools marked with a Supported at LMU badge are recommended and supported at LMU.
Preregistration Platforms
Platforms to publicly register your study design and analysis plan before data collection:
OSF
Flexible templates, embargoes, file storage
Read more
Widely used across fields. Supports version control and integrates with file storage.
AsPredicted
Quick 9-question format
Read more
Simple, focused on core study elements. Popular in psychology and behavioral sciences.
ClinicalTrials.gov
Clinical trials registry
Read more
Required by many medical journals and funders for clinical research.
AEA RCT Registry
Economics & social sciences
Read more
American Economic Association registry for randomized controlled trials in economics and social sciences.
RIDIE
Development impact evaluations
Read more
Registry for International Development Impact Evaluations. Open to experimental and observational studies.
EGAP Registry
Governance & politics research
Read more
Evidence in Governance and Politics registry for social science research designs.
Power Analysis Tools
Software for calculating sample sizes and statistical power:
R packages
Tutorial availableRead more
Simulation-based power for mixed models and factorial designs.
G*Power
Point-and-click interface
Read more
Free software for t-tests, F-tests, correlations, and more with graphical displays.
WebPower
Online tools, no installation
Read more
Browser-based power analysis with tutorials and examples.
Data Management Planning
Tools to create and manage data management plans for your research:
RDMO
Research Data Management Organiser
Supported at LMURead more
Available via LMU Library. Contact rdm@ub.uni-muenchen.de for access and support.
DMPonline
European funder templates
Read more
Web-based with guidance text and institutional review support.
DataWiz
Automated data documentation assistant
Read more
From ZPID (Leibniz Institute for Psychology) - helps document and manage research data from the start of the research cycle. Includes DMP creation assistance and a knowledge base for research data management.
Literature & Prior Work Discovery
Platforms to find and explore existing research in your field:
Connected Papers
Visual citation networks
Read more
Graph visualization to discover related work and influential papers.
Semantic Scholar
AI-powered literature search
Read more
Shows influence metrics, citation contexts, and key figures. Free with API.
PubMed / Europe PMC
Biomedical databases
Read more
MEDLINE citations and full-text open access articles with advanced filters.
Evaluate Research Quality
Tools to assess the credibility and impact of research you’ve found:
Altmetric
Track article attention & discussions
Read more
Shows mentions in news, social media, policy documents, and peer reviews. Available as browser add-on.
PubPeer
Post-publication peer review
Read more
Community comments on published papers. Browser add-on alerts you to discussions. Integrated in Altmetric scores.
Curate Science
Replication reports & transparency
Read more
Database of replication studies and transparency ratings for psychology research.
Data & Code Repositories
Repositories for discovering existing datasets and code to build upon:
Zenodo
General-purpose repository, DOIs
Read more
Accepts all research outputs, integrates with GitHub, provides version control.
re3data
Registry of data repositories
Read more
Search across disciplines to find appropriate domain-specific repositories.
GitHub / GitLab
Version control platforms
Tutorial availableRead more
Public platforms for code collaboration with issue tracking and documentation.
LRZ GitLab
Secure institutional Git hosting
Supported at LMURead more
LRZ-hosted private repositories for active research. Use LRZ credentials to access.
Reference Management
Tools to organize, annotate, and cite your literature:
Zotero
Free, open-source reference manager
Tutorial availableRead more
Browser plugin for automatic citation capture. Works with Word, RStudio, Google Docs. Group libraries for collaboration.
Mendeley
PDF annotation & social features
Read more
Desktop and web versions with PDF organization and annotation tools.
JabRef
BibTeX for LaTeX workflows
Read more
Lightweight, customizable BibTeX manager for LaTeX users.
Funding & Grant Support
Funding applications often require plans for open and reproducible research practices.
LMU Research Funding Unit provides expertise on open science requirements in grant proposals.
- For open science/reproducibility questions in proposals:
- National calls: Florian Schreck
- International calls: Laura Kropf
- For Medicine-specific funding:
- National: Jörg Teuber
- International: Susanne Troppmann
- Website: LMU Research Funding
- What they offer: Review of proposals, guidance on funder requirements for open access and data sharing, knowledge of latest policy developments
No single tool fits every workflow. Consider: your discipline’s norms, institutional support, collaboration needs, data sensitivity, and long-term preservation requirements. Many researchers combine multiple tools.
Planning Checklist
Research Design:
Documentation & Planning:
Before Data Collection: