Pre-registering an experiment in a public registry of clinical trials keeps the experimenters honest (avoids ex post modifications of hypotheses to fit the data and “cherry-picking” the data by removing “outliers”), but unfortunately reveals information to competing research groups. This is an especially relevant concern in commercial R&D.

The same verifiability of honesty could be achieved without revealing scientific details by initially publicly distributing an encrypted description of the experiment, and after finishing the research, publishing the encryption key. Ex post, everyone can check that the specified experimental design was followed and all variables reported (no p-hacking). Ex ante, competitors do not know the trial details, so cannot copy it or infer the research direction.