TOP 2025: An update to the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines

Transparency and openness are core scientific values that enable independent verification of reported research results. The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, first published in 2015 (TOP 2015), provided a flexible framework for journals to design and implement publication standards promoting these values. Over the past decade, widespread use of TOP 2015 contributed to valuable evidence and feedback for refinement.

The TOP Advisory Board undertook a comprehensive update of TOP 2015 that went into effect in 2025 (TOP 2025). The update introduces an explicit conceptual framework clarifying its primary objective: improving the verifiability of empirical research claims. Standards are reorganized into three categories (Research Practices, Verification Practices, and Verification Studies) that resolve conceptual and structural limitations of TOP 2015. Research Practices include seven discrete practices implemented in three ways: Disclosed, Shared and Cited, and Certified. Verification Practices introduce standards for computational reproducibility and results transparency, while Verification Studies enumerate empirical research designs and publication formats that support verification of results. Language now centers on researchers and studies (rather than journals) to facilitate adoption by funders, research organizations, preprint servers, evidence curators, and other interest-holders. These changes promote flexible implementation and contextual tailoring.

TOP 2025 retains the core strengths of TOP 2015 while addressing feedback from a decade of implementation and advances in open science. Rather than a universal mandate, it provides a shared, adaptable framework to coordinate the design, implementation, and communication of open policies across interest-holders.