How is Latin America engaging with responsible metrics? A systematic review comparing regional and global scientific production

Abstract

Responsible metrics and responsible research assessment constitute an expanding field, driven primarily from the Global North through initiatives such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the Leiden Manifesto, and CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment). However, despite growing international interest, Latin American scholarship on this subject remains largely unexamined. To address this gap, this paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature on responsible metrics in the Latin American context. Drawing on 239 publications identified across five databases (Web of Science, Scopus, SciELO, Redalyc, and Dialnet) for the period 2012-2025, we compare the characteristics of Latin American output with publications from the rest of the world included in the same corpus. The results show that Latin American output has followed an irregular trajectory and lower volume than global production, with a peak between 2019 and 2022 followed by a sharp decline from 2023 onward, while output from the rest of the world has accelerated its growth during the same period. The Latin American literature is characterized by a predominance of theoretical and qualitative approaches, an orientation toward national and regional scales, and a strong alignment with the open science and open access agenda. In contrast, non-Latin American output displays greater methodological diversity and a growing number of applied studies documenting concrete reforms to research assessment systems. Overall, the findings point to the need to strengthen applied research on responsible metrics in Latin America and to better articulate local agendas with international debates on research assessment reform.