Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary

Operational definition

The Reporting Summary is a mandatory, standardized form that Springer Nature requires alongside the manuscript for most Nature Portfolio research journals (Nature and its sister Nature-branded titles) whenever the submitted work falls into one of three field-specific tracks: life sciences, behavioural & social sciences, or ecological, evolutionary & environmental sciences. A submission is an instance of this term if, and only if, the corresponding author has completed the current Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary template (a fillable PDF, completed in Adobe Reader) and submitted it as part of the manuscript package. Nature Portfolio states the form’s purpose directly: to “improve the reproducibility of the work that we publish” by giving “structure for consistency and transparency in reporting.” The form is distinct from the separate Nature Portfolio Editorial Policy Checklist, which authors whose manuscripts proceed to peer review may also be asked to complete; the Editorial Policy Checklist covers broader policy compliance and is used internally by editors rather than published with the paper.

What the form requires

Every completed Reporting Summary, regardless of field, includes a common core plus a field-specific branch:

Common core: statistics, software/code, and data

• Statistics. For every statistical analysis reported in the manuscript, authors confirm (or mark “n/a” with justification) whether the paper states: the exact sample size (n) per group as a discrete number and unit; whether measurements came from distinct samples or repeated measurement of the same sample; which statistical test was used and whether it was one- or two-sided; covariates tested; assumptions/corrections applied (e.g., normality tests, multiple-comparison adjustment); central tendency and variation/uncertainty estimates; test statistics, confidence intervals, degrees of freedom, and exact P values for null-hypothesis testing; prior and MCMC settings for Bayesian analysis; and effect sizes with how they were calculated.
• Software and code. Authors name the software used for data collection and data analysis. Custom code or algorithms central to the research must be made available to editors and reviewers, with community-repository deposition (e.g., GitHub) encouraged.
• Data. Every manuscript must include a data availability statement covering accession codes or persistent identifiers for public datasets, any access restrictions, and — for clinical or third-party data — adherence to Nature Portfolio’s clinical-data policy. See CASRAI’s guide to writing a data availability statement for the mechanics of that companion requirement.

Field-specific study design branch

Authors select exactly one of three tracks, and every field asks for disclosure “even when the disclosure is negative” — i.e., stating that randomization or blinding was not used, and why, satisfies the requirement; leaving the field blank does not.

• Life sciences: sample size (with justification), data exclusions, replication, randomization, blinding.
• Behavioural & social sciences: study description, research sample, sampling strategy, data collection, timing, data exclusions, non-participation/attrition, randomization.
• Ecological, evolutionary & environmental sciences: study description, research sample, sampling strategy, data collection, timing and spatial scale, data exclusions, reproducibility, randomization, blinding — plus a field-work supplement (field conditions, location, access/import-export permits, disturbance) if the study involved fieldwork.

Beyond this, a materials/methods checklist asks authors to flag whether the study involved antibodies, eukaryotic cell lines, palaeontology/archaeology specimens, animals or other research organisms, clinical data, dual-use research of concern, or plants — and whether specific methods (ChIP-seq, flow cytometry, MRI-based neuroimaging) were used, each triggering its own detailed sub-section (e.g., antibody validation, ARRIVE-guideline-aligned animal reporting, CONSORT-checklist-referencing clinical trial fields, ChIP-seq data-deposition confirmation, flow-cytometry plot requirements, MRI acquisition/preprocessing/statistical-modeling parameters).

When it applies, and when it published

The Reporting Summary is submitted with the manuscript and, per Nature Portfolio’s own guidance, is made available to editors and reviewers during assessment and published alongside the paper if it is accepted — it becomes part of the permanent, citable record, not an internal-only compliance artifact. Because the field-specific branch is limited to exactly three tracks (life sciences; behavioural & social sciences; ecological, evolutionary & environmental sciences), a manuscript that falls outside all three — see the counter-example below — does not complete that branch, though the statistics/software/data core can still be relevant wherever the paper reports quantitative analysis.

Worked example 1 — life sciences

A manuscript reporting a knockout-mouse behavioural phenotyping experiment submitted to a Nature Portfolio life-sciences journal completes the life sciences branch: stating the exact number of animals per genotype and group, whether any animals or data points were excluded and why, whether the phenotyping result was independently replicated, how animals were allocated to groups (or a negative statement that randomization was not performed, with reasoning), and whether the experimenter scoring the behavioural outcome was blinded to genotype. The statistics section additionally requires the exact test used, one- or two-sided designation, and full effect-size reporting for every comparison in the figures.

Worked example 2 — behavioural & social sciences

A survey-based psychology manuscript submitted to a Nature Portfolio behavioural-science journal instead completes the behavioural & social sciences branch: a description of the study, how the research sample was defined and recruited (sampling strategy), when data collection occurred (timing), any exclusions applied to responses, the non-participation/attrition rate, and — if the design was experimental rather than purely observational — how participants were randomized to conditions.

Counter-example

A purely theoretical or computational manuscript submitted to a Nature Portfolio physical-sciences or mathematics journal — for example, a paper deriving a new proof or a materials-physics model with no human, animal, ecological, or behavioural study design — is not an instance of a completed field-specific Reporting Summary branch, because the form’s field-specific section offers only the three tracks above and none applies. Such a paper may still be asked for the common statistics/code/data core if it reports quantitative results, but “Reporting Summary” as a controlled-vocabulary instance in CASRAI’s usage specifically denotes the life-sciences/behavioural/ecological reproducibility-disclosure form, not Nature Portfolio’s general editorial or data-availability requirements taken alone.

Related terms

• ARRIVE 2.0 — the animal-research reporting guideline the form’s Animals section aligns with
• CONSORT 2010 — referenced directly in the form’s Clinical data section
• PRISMA 2020 — the equivalent reporting guideline for systematic reviews
• NIH Rigor and Reproducibility policy — a comparable funder-side (rather than publisher-side) reproducibility-disclosure requirement
• Reproducibility crisis — the broader problem this form and similar reporting guidelines were designed to address
• Methods reproducibility
• How to Write a Data Availability Statement for Reproducibility