Rethinking the Evaluation of Scientific Activity
from the costs of hegemonic indicators to the urgency of inclusive and multidimensional models
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/biblios.2025.1438Keywords:
bibliometrics, global south, research evaluation, research metricsAbstract
This editorial analyzes the necessary transition from a purely quantitative evaluation culture to inclusive and multidimensional models, structured around four main themes. First, it discusses the historical role of Metrics Studies in legitimizing evaluation systems, advocating a critical stance toward instruments that have assumed normative functions regarding scientific behavior. The evidence discussed confirms the exhaustion of hegemonic models and the crisis of representativeness in databases, emphasizing the costs of relying on commercial metrics that neglect research output from the Global South and the Humanities. The text denounces how the transformation of indicators into performance targets compromises the integrity of research, proposing approaches that value social impact and institutional diversity. Finally, this special issue of the 9th EBBC is part of a historical debate on metrics, calling on the community to embrace ethical and epistemological co-responsibility. Rethinking metrics means reflecting on what kind of science we wish to produce and for whom. Bibliometrics, with rigor and critical sensitivity, proves essential for guiding scientific production not merely by numbers, but through ethical relevance and the strengthening of the academic ecosystem.
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