Abstract: This abstract is one step in a process of consultation on how to take forward the idea of a register of methodological research. Over the last few decades, the problems in identifying relevant trials of healthcare interventions have been described many times. Publication bias and selective reporting of trial results make the task of finding trials extremely difficult. Trying to overcome this problem has been one of the major tasks undertaken within the Cochrane Collaboration. The preferred solution, however, would be prospective registration of all clinical trials. There are now several initiatives to help achieve this aim. We need to learn from this within methodological research. We should plan how to register prospectively our own empirical studies. This would both facilitate future systematic reviews of methodology (as planned by the Cochrane Empirical Methodological Studies Methods Group) and allow users of the individual studies to identify them more easily. To succeed it must be easy both to input and to extract information. Currently, the Cochrane Methodology Register on The Cochrane Library contains records for published reports of empirical studies of methodological aspects of systematic reviews. In addition, some Cochrane Methods Groups maintain details of ongoing research relevant to their scope (for example the Individual Patient Data Methods Group). Combining these might, therefore, be a solution for the short term. In the longer term, a decision would be needed on the type of information to store in the register and it might be worth applying the principle that minimising the amount of information collected on each study will maximise the number of studies collected. Information that might be contained in the register includes: name and contact details of researcher; title, start and end date; objective; source of data and proposed analyses; plans for dissemination of findings; and, eventually, a structured report of the findings of each study.