Guest post by Matías Alcantara, from CLACSO-FOLEC.
On December 11, 2025, the Bogotá Manifesto: Towards Open, Democratic, and Socially Relevant Science in Latin America and the Caribbean was publicly launched in a virtual event organized by CLACSO. This collective document marks a milestone for the region in advancing the transformation of knowledge production systems and research assessment practices. The Manifesto was promoted by FOLEC, together with the Working Groups Open Science as a Common Good and Mobile and Politicized Social Science, as the result of a participatory process initiated during the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Conference of Social Sciences, held in Bogotá in June 2025.
Why the Manifesto Emerged and What It Proposes
The Bogotá Manifesto responds to the structural challenges facing science in the region: dependence on external institutional models and commercial metrics, the commodification of scientific production, the precarization of academic labor, and the growing disconnect between research and social needs. In this context, the document puts forward a comprehensive roadmap that goes beyond hegemonic evaluation models, with the aim of transforming the entire architecture of the scientific system.
Its proposal is structured around three strategic pillars:
- Open science as a common good, encompassing all stages of the research cycle—data, publications, infrastructures, and evaluation—as public, inclusive, and non-commercial goods.
- A new model of research assessment grounded in social relevance, moving beyond commercial indicators toward qualitative, contextualized, participatory, and socially oriented criteria.
- Epistemic and technological sovereignty, aimed at reclaiming democratic control over the platforms, infrastructures, languages, and tools that shape how knowledge is produced and circulated.
These pillars are articulated through four guiding principles that address cognitive and social justice, the democratization of knowledge, the transformation of evaluation systems, and capacity-building in a culture of responsible research assessment and open science conceived as a public and common good across the region.
A Collective Call to Action
The Manifesto is not merely a diagnostic document; it constitutes a call to action addressed to governments, science and technology agencies, universities, social organizations, and public and private stakeholders. It calls on them to adopt policies and practices that recognize knowledge as a driver of justice, inclusion, and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In this sense, the Bogotá Manifesto builds upon and deepens the 2022 FOLEC Declaration of Principles, consolidating new regional agreements to advance toward more open, fair, collaborative, and democratic scientific systems.
An Opportunity for Collaboration and Awareness-Raising
The launch event brought together key regional voices and international networks committed to open science, responsible research assessment, and cognitive justice. Their participation underscored the importance of strengthening alliances and shared spaces capable of sustaining these transformations across disciplines and territories.
For researchers, evaluators, policymakers, and institutions working in science policy, research assessment, and access to knowledge, the Bogotá Manifesto offers a concrete opportunity to rethink and align strategies that reorient scientific practices toward social needs and territorial priorities in Latin America and the Caribbean.