Research & Development Templates
Research that lacks documented protocols produces results that cannot be reproduced. Data collected without a structured methodology cannot be defended in peer review or regulatory submission. Experiments designed without pre-specified analysis plans produce findings that fail independent replication. CheckFlow’s research and development checklist templates give every R&D process the documented, systematic structure that reproducible, defensible research requires — from literature reviews and experimental design through to data collection, ethics compliance, patent applications, and research proposal submission.
Whether you’re preparing a patent application, designing a data collection methodology, meeting R&D ethics compliance requirements, tracking experiment workflows, conducting a literature review, or submitting a research proposal, each template ensures every step is documented and every decision is recorded before it is acted on. Browse the templates below, or explore the detailed process guide for each workflow.
Explore Our Research & Development Templates
Each template below includes a detailed process guide covering the R&D workflow, what every phase involves, and how to produce research that is reproducible, compliant, and defensible. Click any template to read the full guide.
Patent Application Process Checklist
A structured patent lifecycle process covering invention documentation, patentability assessment, professional prior art search, patent attorney engagement, provisional and non-provisional filing, USPTO prosecution, and post-grant maintenance.
R&D Data Collection Process Checklist
A systematic research data collection workflow covering methodology design, instrument validation, participant recruitment, data collection execution following GLP principles, data quality control, and FAIR-compliant storage.
R&D Ethics Compliance Checklist
A structured research ethics compliance process covering ethics risk assessment, informed consent design, IRB/ethics committee submission, approval and study initiation, ongoing compliance monitoring, and research integrity management.
R&D Experiment Tracking Workflow Checklist
A rigorous experiment management process covering hypothesis formulation, experimental design with controls and pre-specified analysis, protocol documentation, real-time execution recording, data analysis, results interpretation, and archiving.
R&D Literature Review Checklist
A structured literature review process covering scope and research question definition, database search strategy, source screening with defined inclusion/exclusion criteria, critical appraisal, synthesis and gap identification, and review documentation.
Research Proposal Submission Checklist
A comprehensive research proposal development process covering problem statement and significance, literature review, research design, ethics plan, timeline and milestones, budget justification, formatting compliance, and post-submission response management.
Why Research Teams Use CheckFlow
Experiments documented contemporaneously — not reconstructed from memory
The GLP principle of contemporaneous documentation — recording observations at the time they are made, not from memory hours or days later — is not bureaucratic rigidity; it is the practice that produces research records that can be defended in peer review, regulatory submission, and IP disputes. CheckFlow's experiment tracking workflow is designed for real-time completion during the experiment, building the documented record as the science happens.
Ethics compliance confirmed before data collection begins
Beginning human subjects data collection before ethics approval is received is the most serious research ethics violation — and it occurs most commonly when the data collection workflow is not gated on approval. CheckFlow makes IRB/ethics committee approval a required phase gate in the data collection workflow — the collection process cannot be initiated until the ethics compliance phase is marked complete.
Research proposals submitted on time with every requirement met
A grant application submitted without the required data management plan, with a budget that exceeds the programme limit, or after the deadline will not be funded. CheckFlow's proposal checklist assigns every component to a named owner with a deadline, tracks progress against the submission date, and requires every funder formatting requirement to be confirmed before submission is cleared.
Research & Development Templates — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the reproducibility crisis in research and how does structured documentation help?
The reproducibility crisis refers to the finding that a significant proportion of published scientific results — across psychology, biomedicine, economics, and other fields — cannot be replicated by independent researchers using the same methods. The causes are substantially process failures rather than fraud: protocols that were not written before execution and reconstructed afterwards, controls that were omitted, conditions that were not recorded, and analysis methods selected after inspecting the data (p-hacking). Structured documentation addresses each of these: recording the hypothesis and experimental design before execution prevents post-hoc hypothesis generation; requiring contemporaneous recording of conditions and deviations during execution produces an accurate record; and pre-specifying the analysis plan before data collection prevents the selection of analysis methods based on which produces a significant result. Research that follows a documented process can be reproduced; research that relies on the researcher's memory of what they did cannot.
What does IRB or ethics committee approval involve?
IRB (Institutional Review Board in the US) and Research Ethics Committee (REC/IEC in the UK and internationally) approval is the mandatory review of research involving human subjects to ensure participants' rights and welfare are protected. The process involves: submitting a full research protocol (including research design, data collection methods, risk-benefit analysis, and informed consent procedures), supporting documents (consent forms, recruitment materials, investigator CVs and training certifications), and receiving a determination of the review type (Exempt, Expedited, or Full Board — determined by the IRB, not the researcher). Approval must be received before any human subjects data collection begins. Research must be conducted as approved — any changes require an amendment submission. Annual continuing review is required for most approvals. The most important rule: no data collection before approval, no exceptions.
What are FAIR data principles and why do funders require them?
FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable — a set of principles for research data management published in Scientific Data in 2016. Findable: data is assigned a persistent unique identifier and described with rich metadata so it can be located. Accessible: data and metadata can be retrieved using open, standardised protocols. Interoperable: data uses standard vocabularies and formats that allow it to be combined with other datasets. Reusable: data is richly described with provenance and a clear usage licence so others can understand, validate, and build upon it. Funders require FAIR data management because research data produced with public funding represents a scientific asset that should be preserved and made available for reuse — accelerating science and maximising the return on research investment. EU Horizon Europe (the world's largest publicly funded R&D programme at €95.5 billion), the UK Research Councils (UKRI), and the NIH all require FAIR data management plans.
Can CheckFlow's R&D templates be used for both academic research and corporate R&D?
Every CheckFlow template is fully customisable for both contexts. For academic research: align experiment tracking with your institution's ELN (Electronic Lab Notebook) requirements, add funder-specific data management plan steps to the data collection template, and include the institutional ethics submission workflow specific to your IRB. For corporate R&D: adapt the research proposal template to an internal investment case framework, replace academic publication steps with IP protection and technology transfer steps, add the regulatory submission requirements relevant to your industry (FDA, EMA, or other), and align data management with your organisation's data governance policy. For pharmaceutical and medical device R&D specifically: add the GLP and GCP compliance requirements, validation documentation, and the regulatory pathway-specific evidence requirements.