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Citación: Vélez-Cuartas, GRAMO., Barata, GRAMO.,
costas, r., Mugnaini, r., & Rafols, I.
(2023). Latmétricas: Special issue on
developments of S&T indicators in
América Latina. Quantitative Science
Estudios, 4(1), 229–232. https://doi.org
/10.1162/qss_e_00234
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_e_00234
Recibió: 24 Noviembre 2022
Aceptado: 15 December 2022
Autor correspondiente:
Gabriel Vélez-Cuartas
gjaime.velez@udea.edu.co
Editor de manejo:
Juego Waltman
EDITORIAL
Latmétricas: Special issue on developments
of S&T indicators in Latin America
Gabriel Vélez-Cuartas1
, Germana Barata2
, Rodrigo Costas3
,
Rogerio Mugnaini4
, and Ismael Rafols3
1Sociology Department, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia
2Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor) of the Creativity Development Nucleus (NUDECRI),
State University of Campinas, Campinas, Brasil
3Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Universidad de Leiden, Leiden, Países Bajos
4Department of Information and Culture, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil
1. REGIONAL CONTEXT OF THE LATMÉTRICAS CONFERENCE
En años recientes, Latin America has deepened its reflections on scientific research assessment.
Different agendas have emerged from the debates between governments and academics at the
national and regional levels. Researchers from academic institutions have shared their per-
spectives on various initiatives, such as FOLEC1 (Latin American Forum for Scientific Assess-
ment from CLACSO) and RICYT2 (the Latin American Network of Indicators in Science and
Tecnología). Other institutions also have advanced proposals for new directions on research
evaluación, such as LA Referencia3 (a network of Open Access repositories), Latindex4 (a cat-
alogue of journals), and the regional bibliographic databases of SciELO5 and Redalyc6, también
as other local institutions such as governments and universities. Por supuesto, those initiatives
have been related to the Global North’s initiatives such as DORA, the Leiden Manifesto,
the Metric Tide, INorms, and other proposals linked to responsible metrics.
En general, these initiatives capture the struggles between the criteria of accountability pro-
posed by national governments and the social realities experienced by scientific researchers in
their everyday activities to acquire funds, make scientific discoveries or support the develop-
ment of their respective countries. These struggles also reflect the long-standing discussions
about the organization of scholarly communication systems that are composed mainly of local
journals with a diamond open access model—far away from commercial dynamics, the need
to diversify the affiliations of researchers, most of them affiliated to universities, and the strat-
egies to avoid the pressures of the evaluation system associated with publication in journals
with high APC costs for Latin America.
2. LATMÉTRICAS AND QUANTITATIVE SCIENCE STUDIES IN LATIN AMERICA
This situation has drawn the attention of researchers to scientific evaluation, leading them to
propose new evaluation methods and indicators that are in accordance and appropriate to
their social realities. There have been two relevant programs. The first is the scientometric
and bibliometric community assembled around the IDICT Congress (Instituto de Información
Derechos de autor: © 2023 Gabriel Vélez-
Cuartas, Germana Barata, Rodrigo
costas, Rogerio Mugnaini, and Ismael
Rafols. Published under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 Internacional
(CC POR 4.0) licencia.
La prensa del MIT
1 https://www.clacso.org/en/folec/.
2 https://www.ricyt.org/en/.
3 https://www.lareferencia.info/en/.
4 https://www.latindex.org/latindex/.
5 https://www.latindex.org/latindex/.
6 https://www.redalyc.org/.
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Latmétricas: Special issue
Científica y Tecnológica) celebrated in Cuba from 2002 a 2018. Its last version was a Symposium
on Quantitative and Qualitative Studies of Science and Technology held in Mexico in 2019. El
other program is Latmetrics7, dedicated to discussing altmetric instruments in 2018 y 2019 en
Brasil. Both experiences showed advances on assessment issues and promoted the emergence
of new programs, such as geohistoriometric tools (Flores-Vargas, Vitar-Sandoval et al., 2018)8,
changes in the instruments employed by regional journals to deliver their performance, and new
ways to be accountable for different groups, organizations and collectives.
En 2021, the academic committees of both conferences agreed to merge Latmetrics and the
scientometric symposium into a single regional conference: Latmétricas9. This conference
brought together more than 500 practitioners and researchers from every corner of Latin
America and the Caribbean. There were sessions on new metrics, measuring open access
effects on productivity and impact, the relationship between gender and scientific assessment,
STI policies and assessment by regional governments, geohistoriometric indicators to evaluate
the historical trajectories of scientific production, and assessment of infrastructure capacities.
The conference was also important to the editorial teams of scientific journals, as the Latin
American Association of Scientific Editors (ALAEC)10 was launched there, under the auspices
of the editors’ associations from Colombia11, Brazil12, and Uruguay13, respectivamente.
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3. RECENT DEVELOPMENT AND DEBATES IN LATMÉTRICAS
Besides the vibrant enthusiasm of debates between classical scientometric analysis and new
analytical possibilities, it was possible to witness significant advances in platforms and pro-
posals to retrieve regional information from different databases and produce indicators based
on this information: Dialnet metrics14, OLIVA15, ImpactU16, and RICyT indicators17. Estos
platforms are good news for the region, as they enable the region to become more independent
of the rigid schemes of global platforms, which do not include all of the production relevant to
the region, restricting themselves mainly to publications from commercial journals. One good
example of these conceptual, metodológico, and technological developments is the
advances in recognizing research products resulting from research in the field of arts (diferente
from the experimental and empirical fields of research), also called research-creation, una novela
concept for scientometricians, who need to develop metrics for those types of research results.
One of the panels was dedicated to this critical matter. This panel discussed ways to assess
products from the field of arts research18.
Another workshop was focused on building new visions of quantitative science studies. El
panelists talked about the usefulness of classic indicators and the need for new frameworks to
understand science in its dynamic relationship with its environment, responsible metrics, y
7 https://www.latmetrics.com/.
8 See the geohistoriometric instruments panel: https://youtu.be/q12tXzJOBjc.
9 https://latmetricas.wordpress.com/.
10 https://www.clacso.org/editores-ras-firman-manifiesto-sobre-evaluacion-de-las-revistas-en-america-latina-y
-crean-la-asociacion-latinoamericana-de-editores-cientificos-alaec/.
11 https://unilibros.co/.
12 https://www.abecbrasil.org.br/novo/.
13 https://aura.edu.uy/.
14 https://dialnet.unirioja.es/metricas/.
15 https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/2653.
16 https://impactu.colav.co/app/.
17 https://www.ricyt.org/category/indicadores/.
18 Research-creation panel: https://youtu.be/d-99xbEu_qA.
Estudios de ciencias cuantitativas
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Latmétricas: Special issue
the accountability of science. Finalmente, one of the closing panelists, Juan Pablo Alperin, drew
attention to the essential changes that have been taking place in Latin America in the last few
años. The region has evolved from a small group of practitioners interested in scientometrics
developments to a larger and stronger collective with many forward-looking proposals.
4. A SELECTION OF PRESENTATIONS AT LATMÉTRICAS 2021
This special issue presents a small selection of contributions from Latmétricas 2021. It includes
the following articles:
(cid:129) Mapping the use of Google Scholar in bibliometric or scientometric studies: A systematic
and bibliometric review by Fabiana Andrade Pereira and Rogerio Mugnaini.
(cid:129) The management of scientific and technological infrastructures: The case of the Mexican
National Laboratories by Leonardo Munguía, Juan Escalante, and Eduardo Robles
Belmont.
(cid:129) The transformation of medical research in Mexico. A structural analysis of thematical
dominios, institutional affiliations, authors’ cohorts, and possible correlations by Matías
Milia, Claudia Gonzalez-Brambila, Ángel Lee, and José Ponce Sánchez.
(cid:129) Indicators of research circulation: Localization and internationalization under scrutiny.
An exploratory case study of the Cuyo Manual in Argentina by Víctor Algañaraz, Flavia
Prado and, María Pía Rossomando.
Mugnaini and Andrade present a map of the evolution of quantitative science studies using
Google Scholar. They show the global landscape highlighting the role played by some
researchers in Latin America. Google Scholar is one of the platforms to follow the citation
counting of different kinds of academic documents and the diversity of sources citing them,
expanding the possibilities of assessment and research on science.
Munguía et al. present some tools to assess performance and leadership in Mexican
National Laboratories. Algarañaz et al. show how the Cuyo Manual can help evaluate the rela-
tionships between the university and its environment. Both papers show possible paths to
address research assessment by considering the particularities of local and national contexts.
One of the most significant criticisms of scientometric models is the lack of diversity of indi-
cators and the partial viewpoint that can result from such a narrow analysis. El
organizational-level analysis proposed by these papers provides some new horizons to the
debate. Note that Algarañaz et al. have worked on the Cuyo Manual to standardize these indi-
cators of localization, in the wake of a series of RICyT Manuals of regionally contextualized
indicators, such as the Manual of Valencia19 of indicators of knowledge exchange.
Finalmente, Milia et al. offer a model to explore the evolution of a scientific community in a
national context. As opposed to the strategies of scientific rankings (which normalize their
indicators according to citation counts and impact measures), they evaluate the field of
medical studies according to the capacities developed to introduce communities and
researchers to those communities. Those significant developments call attention to regional
advances that can give better information to decision makers.
This issue also includes an interview with Argentinian sociologist Fernanda Beigel, profes-
sor at the National University of Cuyo, Argentina, who shares her expertise and views about
19 https://www.ricyt.org/2017/06/manual-de-indicadores-de-vinculacion-de-la-universidad-con-el-entorno
-socioeconomico-manual-de-valencia/.
Estudios de ciencias cuantitativas
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Latmétricas: Special issue
how Latin America, where open science has traditionally been practiced by academics, es
dealing with global changes on policies towards more openness.
We hope that this special issue helps to introduce some relevant developments in quanti-
tative science studies from Latin America and the Caribbean. Research and policy agendas are
shifting, and this issue presents some of the new directions followed in Latin America.
REFERENCE
Flores-Vargas, X., Vitar-Sandoval, S. h., Gutiérrez-Maya, j. I.,
Collazo-Rodríguez, PAG., & Collazo-Reyes, F. (2018). Determinants
of the emergence of modern scientific knowledge in mineralogy
(México, 1975–1849): A geohistoriometric approach. Sciento-
métrica, 115, 1505–1515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018
-2646-5
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