在不断变化的评价环境中，科学与学术生产的动态变化 | 提交截止日期第 14 卷第 2 期（2026 年 11 月）

 

 

methaodos.social science journal invites submissions for the special issue Dynamics of Science and Academic Production in a Changing Evaluative Environment coordinated by Álvaro Cabezas Clavijo, to be published in November 2026 (Vol. 14, No. 2).

The deadline for manuscript submission is 1 October 2026.

Please note that methaodos.social science journal operates on a continuous publication basis, so accepted manuscripts may be published online ahead of the issue’s release date.

 

Conceptualization

Scientific production within the pan-Hispanic knowledge space has always operated under parameters shaped by evaluative policies imposed from the global North. In particular, the uncritical application of quantitative indicators based on commercial products external to the so-called “scientific peripheries,” as well as policies aimed at increasing purely nominal productivity, have generated various inefficiencies in the science and technology systems of our geographical and cultural context.

In recent years, scientific fraud has increased, as has the production of cloned papers that offer no value to the commons; and, de facto, research agendas have been established that are scarcely or not at all aligned with the social priorities and civic challenges faced by our countries.

Although research is an essential objective for any higher education institution, the reality is that many of the agents responsible for carrying out research activities lack the means, training, or resources necessary to do so properly. In this regard, academic promotion policies and inadequate incentives have exacerbated poor practices such as the purchase of authorship in publications through paper mills. Institutional practices contrary to academic ethics have also become widespread, such as paying researchers from other countries to add an affiliation to a university where they do not actually work.

At the same time, the pan-Hispanic science and technology system has successfully developed highly valuable infrastructures, networks, and resources—almost always open access—that have brought a vast flow of knowledge to society at minimal cost. Making a virtue of necessity, and through enormous collaborative efforts among entities from various countries, initiatives such as Scielo, Redalyc, and Dialnet are now globally recognized as tools for disseminating and enhancing the value of knowledge produced by our institutions, while also promoting science in languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque, in addition to Spanish and Portuguese.

These soft-power instruments have not prevented, however, the brain drain to institutions in the global North, nor the absolute dependence on publishers backed by global scientific powers in order to progress in scientific careers.

Our universities and research centers have not fostered healthy working environments, nor have they created conditions that ensure the stability and state of mind required to carry out thoughtful, reflective scientific activity centered on the intellectual frameworks of our nations or on the social needs of the region.

All of this unfolds within a general framework of academic activity marked by a chronic imbalance sustained almost exclusively by the unpaid labor of researchers who give their time and knowledge to the multinational giants of academic publishing, all with the acquiescence of public institutions.

Moreover, the rise of generative artificial intelligence tools adds further pressure to the scientific system; today, few people can be certain that what they read has been written—or reviewed—by a human being.

For these reasons, we consider this an ideal moment to promote a collective reflection on the dynamics of science and academic production from a pan-Hispanic perspective—one that may guide our scientific institutions and agencies.

 

Types of Contributions Considered

Analytical, comparative, exploratory, or historical studies will be considered for publication, provided they adopt a standpoint from the global South and offer innovative perspectives or new approaches to the following topics:

 

1. 1. Dynamics of scientific production in the pan-Hispanic knowledge space.

2. 2. Governance of science and technology systems from a decolonial perspective.

3. 3. Initiatives related to open science and citizen science, including regional research dissemination networks and infrastructures, development initiatives, and research-stimulus mechanisms.

4. 4. Policies and mechanisms for assessing and evaluating research activity, especially those incorporating responsible metrics or qualitative approaches to academic assessment.

5. 5. Measures and initiatives promoting scientific ethics and integrity, as well as studies on academic malpractice or scientific fraud.

6. 6. Working and social conditions of researchers, with special emphasis on potential mental-health issues arising from science evaluation policies.

7. 7. Effects of publication policies and academic evaluation systems, particularly those linked to pay-to-publish models and the uncritical measurement of scientific productivity.

8. 8. Policies for the training, retention, and attraction of scientific talent.

9. 9. Evaluative cultures in academia: cultural shifts in peer review, institutional assessment of science, and academic trajectories that move toward greater diversity.

10. 10. Funding of national and/or regional science systems; effects on innovation economies, intellectual property, and patents.

 

Special consideration will be given to studies offering knowledge applicable to our geographical and cultural context, as well as those adopting inter- or transdisciplinary perspectives, or whose conclusions are relevant across disciplines, countries, or policy frameworks.

Research notes and reviews of recent books will also be accepted.

Ultimately, the special issue Dynamics of Science and Academic Production in a Changing Evaluative Environment seeks to strengthen an emerging editorial line of methaodos.social science journal, aimed at disseminating perspectives, ideas, and counterpoints from the social sciences within the pan-Hispanic space, in contrast to the global North.

This strategic line will progressively explore a set of key issues currently shaping academic—and social, in the sense of knowledge transfer—debate, in order to highlight the pan-Hispanic knowledge space. This broad geographical and cultural area is polyphonic in its languages, cultures, and historical trajectories, yet it forms a coherent whole when it comes to culture, art, and science—an identity that must be amplified through social-science perspectives.

Science, art, and technology produced within the pan-Hispanic context remain comparatively limited if we measure them against the social impact generated by the global North and its powerful factories of goods, services, technologies, and social narratives that construct global reality. Nevertheless, in many fields of knowledge, they offer new ways of understanding today’s complex world, grounded in distinctive values that contrast with the conceptual, ecological, and sustainability fatigue increasingly evident in the global North—whose value systems continue, nevertheless, to shape dominant contemporary discourses.