With an increasing capacity for scientific production and a non-profit, decentralised open science infrastructure, Latin America is regarded as a model for scholarly publishing that embraces openness, accessibility, and transparency.

Countries across Latin America are united by international initiatives and shared information systems that seek to increase discoverability, impact, and accessibility. However, the region still faces challenges such as lack of visibility and inadequate budgets.

Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of open science in Latin America to showcase the work being done by researchers to advance knowledge within the region.

Research in Latin America

Latin America is a cultural region that encompasses countries and territories in South America, North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Predominantly Spanish and Portuguese-speaking, it has a population of more than 650 million.

The region has a dedicated research community across its diverse countries. Instead of adapting to policies designed abroad, governments and institutions adopt ‘home-grown’ policies that involve experimentation. These focus on innovation for social development and are increasingly integrating local and indigenous knowledge systems.

Focusing on social development is a key focus yet is related to one of the region’s main challenges. Researchers are incentivised to publish in highly visible and impactful journals, which are typically hosted in the Global North. Due to limited funding, many institutions in the region cannot access these journals, as they remain behind expensive paywalls. Therefore, scholars must balance creating research that is relevant to local needs whilst also progressing their career through publication in high-impact journals.

In short, the region has a strong and resilient research ecosystem with many funding disparities between nations, which can impact access to research relevant to local needs.

Open science

In response to these challenges, the region has focused on pioneering community-driven and non-commercial Open Access. The main drivers of this are universities, societies, research foundations, and government institutions.

According to research conducted by Science, between 2019 and 2023, one in four diamond Open Access journals were published in Latin America.

Furthermore, there are countless infrastructure projects in the region that enable researchers to access and share research results, data, and educational resources. These will be outlined in detail below.

Scholar-led initiatives enable community ownership, decentralisation, and non-commerciality, all whilst boosting access.

Key declarations

The values shaping the approach described above were enshrined in two key declarations.

The Salvador Declaration on Open Access: The Developing World Perspective was developed and signed by participants of the International Seminar of Open Access in 2005.

It was the first major statement on Open Access specific to the Global South and urged governments to promote integrating the region’s scientific knowledge into global research through Open Access.

Practically, the Declaration supported making research open through trusted repositories, adopting Creative Commons licensing, using persistent identifiers, and embracing FAIR data principles.

Secondly, the Panama Declaration on Open Science was developed in 2018 by members of university and civil society organisations and importantly recognised that opening science means going beyond Open Access.

The Declaration outlines the various aspects that comprise open science and should be embraced in the region. These include open data, citizen science, open evaluation, and more. Behind these practices is the aim of addressing global challenges, improving efficiency, and boosting education.

Declarations demonstrate important support and establish a coherent framework of legitimacy in institutions and networks. They signal widespread support for adoption and further development.

Open Access uptake

In Latin America, according to data extracted from Clarivate in August 2026, the ten biggest producers of research by output from 2020 to 2025 have large shares of Open Access publication:

The total number of publications of the ten biggest producers of research in Latin America from 2020 to 2025 (data extracted from Clarivate in August 2026).

Brazil is the leading producer of research in the region, publishing nearly triple the number of research outputs compared to Mexico, which is the second largest. Furthermore, the 5 largest producers of research in the region (Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Columbia) represent a large share of the region’s total output, showcasing the presence of disparities in the scale of research production between countries.

While research output varies considerably across Latin America, Open Access adoption is consistently strong among its leading research-producing countries.

The percentage share of Open Access publications of the ten biggest producers of research in Latin America from 2020 to 2025 (data extracted from Clarivate in August 2026).

Given that the global baseline during this period was 56%, the leading research producers of the region have very high uptakes of Open Access, showcasing the overall success of policies and initiatives, as well as local demand for openness.

Overview of open science in Latin America

Reflecting on the above data, Dr Ryan Siu, Institutional Partnerships Manager, explains:

Both publication and citation metrics provide useful indicators for research activity, but they do not always capture the full story, especially in Latin America with their collaborative work and culture for scholarly communication. Through our collaborations and communication with institutions and researchers across the region, we consistently see strong commitment toward to openness, knowledge sharing, and accessibility for local communities.

The headline numbers also fall short to reflect the full effort many institutions invest in building and maintaining infrastructure for accessibility and community benefit. Despite being encouraged to focus on global visibility, many also desire to address local and regional challenges. Societal impact, collaboration, and equitable access is an important piece to the region’s research ecosystem and provides a glimpse as to why Latin America continues to be recognized as a leader in open science.

Here, we overview the various open science initiatives in Latin America and how they are working to advance open science, as reflected by the high uptake across the region.

SciELO

Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) is a digital collection of OA journals, edited by national scientific societies, professional associations, universities, and research institutions. Its objective is to maximise the visibility and impact of research communicated in nationally edited journals.

It contains more than 1,200 OA journals, which collectively publish an average of 50,000 papers each year.

SciELO co-founder, Abel Packer explains:

SciELO’s decentralized model requires only one national collection per country, which needs to be implemented through a public policy that funds their journal collection following a common methodology.

This structure allows for central governance of policies and procedures whilst empowering local capacity and infrastructure to align with local priorities.

Redalyc

Redalyc is a bibliographic database and a digital library of Open Access journals. It originated in 2002 with a focus on integrating scientific and editorial journals from Latin America into its index. It now exclusively integrates non-profit journals from any region.

It features more than 770,000 articles from more than 1,800 journals, as of August 2026, and has been highly important in increasing access to and the visibility of research in the region. The platform encourages publications in local languages.

Redalyc’s model is based on the approach of science as a common and public good, where scientific communication and publication are non-commercial and controlled by the academic community to achieve a sustainable, inclusive, and participatory academic and scientific ecosystem.

The platform also features an open data collection focused on key issues, such as ending poverty, climate action, and gender studies.

AmeliCA

AmeliCA Open Science is a collaborative initiative designed to promote and strengthen the development of open science. It is controlled by an inter-institutional academy and was created in response to the challenges of delivering Open Access in Latin America and the Global South.

It has dozens of member institutions and dedicated itself to expanding its reach to Africa and Asia in 2023.

Its governing principles are

• Universal law.
• Equity, diversity, and multilingualism.
• Property of the academy and heritage of humanity.
• Recognition and appreciation.

Furthermore, AmeliCA Learning features free comprehensive training programs focused on open science practice. With courses for journal editors, libraries, and researchers, the platform focuses on empowering people with knowledge.

Latindex

Latindex was developed in 1995 by National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and expanded to become a regional cooperation network in 1997.

It features a network of institutions that coordinate to gather and disseminate information on scientific publications produced in Latin America.

It actively disseminates and makes accessible academic journals published in the region.

Red de Repositorios Latinoamericanos

The Latin American Repository Network portal was developed in 2006 by the University of Chile through its Directorate of Information Services and Libraries (SISIB).

It provides access to publications located in different repositories across Latin American countries.

It currently has more than 8,000,000 publications from more than 500 institutions across 21 countries.

LA Referencia

The Latin American Network for Open Science, or simply LA Referencia, supports national Open Access strategies in Latin America and Spain. It provides interoperability standards and access to scientific articles and theses.

There are more than 100 universities and research institutions across 10 countries participating in the initiative.

CLACSO

The Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) brings together more than 900 research and postgraduate centres in the field of social sciences and humanities in 56 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other continents. The CLACSO Repository hosts research published by its member institutions.

One of its 10 objectives is:

To create conditions for open access to Latin American and Caribbean academic production, contributing to the democratization of access to knowledge and allowing its more active use by public policy managers, social and citizen organizations, the press and the university system itself.

CLACSO plays a key role in advancing South–South collaboration, i.e., building connections in the Global South, between Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The Council also hosts the Latin American Forum on Research Assessment (FOLEC-CLASCO), which is a space for debate on the meanings, policies, and practices of research assessment in the region. It is focused on strengthening components of research assessment, whilst staying in dialogue with international trends in open science.

Alignment across the Global South

In 2021, LA Referencia and RedCLARA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with three African research and education networks (ASREN, WACREN, and UbuntoNet Alliance) to formalise their relationship in increasing open science activities.

Their primary goals include:

• Advancing open science policies, services, and infrastructures.
• Ensuring work reflects the unique needs and conditions of each continent.
• Working within a framework of international cooperation.

This Memorandum demonstrates a common recognition of the challenges and opportunities the Global South faces in conducting and publishing research.

Click here to learn more about open science in Africa.

Characteristics of open science in Latin America

In Latin America, a challenge many researchers face is needing to publish in high-impact journals, which are typically hosted in the Global North, for career progression, therefore resulting in their work being inaccessible to others in the region due to expensive subscription fees.

Accessibility is highly important when publishing research on local issues and solutions, so the region has embraced open science as demonstrated by the high share of open publications and two declarations, Salvador and Panama.

Connecting the various institutions across Latin America is a decentralised and scholar-led infrastructure, which enables their research ecosystem to remain non-commercial.

It is likely that non-commercial open science practices will continue expanding and influencing other countries, especially through collaboration with other countries in the Global South.

Furthermore, it is likely that more projects will emerge to expand the scope of open science practice as outlined in the Panama Declaration, such as open data and open peer review.

The region will need to ensure that the level of funding enables them to continue expanding the scope of open science and to adapt to emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and mitigate the threats to integrity these pose. Alongside this, further amendments to research assessment, particularly in rewarding open science, will help further incentivise researchers.

Why Open Access?

Many researchers are choosing to publish their work in an Open Access (OA) format. Governments, funding agencies, and higher education institutions are also mandating Open Access to varying degrees.

In our article 6 Benefits of Open Access, we outline the following:

1. Clarity around copyright and licensing ensure that readers know what they can do with work and that they are protected when reusing it.
2. OA research receives more citations and from more diverse disciplines, institutions, and locations.
3. 85% of the world’s population live in low-to-middle-income countries. OA ensures that vital information and cutting-edge insights are not limited to countries who can pay to access them.
4. OA allows people from outside of academia to access research without spending large amounts of resources to access it.
5. OA enables interdisciplinary research by allowing researchers to focus on common aims rather than be restricted to what’s in their fields.
6. Many governments, funders, and higher education institutions are requiring OA publication. Satisfying their requirements for publication mean your research can receive the backing it needs.

Supporting open science in Latin America

Open science in Latin America is defined by its collaborative and non-commercial values which manifest in decentralised infrastructure, helping to increase discoverability and impact whilst addressing challenges such as limited budgets. Accordingly, Latin America is regarded as a model for scholarly publishing that embraces openness, accessibility, and transparency.

As more institutions continue to expand their open access initiatives, there is growing interest in partnership models to help reduce administrative burdens and support researchers throughout the publishing process. Programs such as MDPI’s Institutional Open Access Program are examples of such models. There are 15 institutions from Latin America already enlisted in the program, from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Mexico. You can send in requests to have your institutions included too.

Furthermore, in April 2026, MDPI hosted the MDPI São Paulo Editors Salon, marking the first Salon held in Brazil. The event brought together more than 50 editors, researchers, and academics for a day of discussion and exchange, supporting stronger connections between MDPI and the Brazilian research community, whilst also marking the introduction of the Salon series to the region. The São Paulo Salon was a celebration of academic excellence and represents the first of more to come.

Click here if you would also like to learn more about Open Access around the world.