About

What is the ISRCTN registry?

ISRCTN is a registry containing the basic set of data items deemed essential to describe a clinical study at inception, following the requirements set out by the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines. All study records are freely accessible and searchable and have been assigned an ISRCTN ID. The Terms and Conditions enable anyone to cite with attribution the details in each study record, and encourage unrestricted use of all metadata generated during the process of registration, updating or reporting.

The registry was launched in 2000, in response to the growing body of opinion in favour of prospective registration of randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Originally ISRCTN stood for 'International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number'; however, over the years the scope of the registry has widened beyond randomised controlled trials to include any study designed to assess the efficacy of health interventions in a human population. This includes both observational and interventional studies.

We work with a number of stakeholders to improve the publicly available information about clinical trials and studies:

Support open access to clinical trial data information, in line with World Health Organization guidelines and ICMJE statements
Contribute to the trial registration objectives of key organizations, such as the UK Department of Health and Social Care - via the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Portfolio, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council (MRC).
Collaborate to streamline trial registration processes, with The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through the NIHR Portfolio, and the Health Research Authority (HRA) and its partners through the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS).
Cooperate with INVOLVE and the Association of Medical Research Charities to ensure that current and future participants are better informed about relevant trials.
Maximise the visibility of clinical trial data by feeding it into the WHO clinical trial search portal and Be Part of Research (if recruiting in the UK).

The ISRCTN registry has taken part in the WHO Working Group on Best Practice for Clinical Trials Registers (BPG).

What can I find in a study record?

ISRCTN records include the 24 items defined by the WHO as the minimum dataset for trial registration. The record also gives information about:

Study outputs (associated materials, including protocols and results)
Date when the record was last edited and corresponding changes in the editorial notes
Participating sites
Plain English summary
Publication plans

On this site you can:

Register your clinical studies and update your records
Find and view clinical studies. Search by condition, intervention, funder, demographics, etc. and filter search results
Download data for further analysis

The ISRCTN registry does not provide patient recruitment services. For users in the UK looking for information on how to take part in a study, please visit Be Part of Research. For any other country, please contact your medical practitioner.

ISRCTN mission statement

Our mission is to support the international consensus on promoting transparency in health research by providing a platform for studies from any location to be registered, making the registration dataset publicly available in a standard form, encouraging updates and data sharing, and adding results.

ISRCTN customer charter

Our customer charter states the commitment of the ISRCTN editorial staff to provide you with quality services and provides you with standards by which to measure our performance:

We will:

Start processing the submission within one working day wherever possible
Ensure that the record achieves the WHO Trial Registration Data Set (TRDS) before publication
Strive towards making the information accessible to the public
Update the record promptly on request
Prompt researchers to update their records