After joining the celebrations of the International Week of Science and Peace promoted by UNESCO in November, the year 2025 concluded with a new milestone in the commitment to science as a common good. CeiED took part in the public presentation of the Manifesto of Bogotá: towards an open, democratic and socially relevant science in Latin America and the Caribbean, a document that brings together teachers, researchers, policymakers and educational stakeholders from across the Latin American and Caribbean region.

The Latin American region, which has already led pioneering initiatives around knowledge as a common good—including the Declaration of Open Access to Knowledge as a Common Good (CLACSO, 2015), the Panama Declaration on Open Science, the UNESCO recommendations and the CoARA Agreement—once again affirms its values and its global leadership in defending a science committed to cognitive justice, epistemic equity and technological sovereignty. Drawing on experiences from Argentina to Mexico, including Brazil, Costa Rica and other South American countries, this manifesto emerges from a long process of collective work as a sign of international convergence around the need to reaffirm and strengthen the public role of open science, understood as a common good, with renewed political, ethical and social force.

The Manifesto: Pillars and fundamental principles for another way of doing science

The Manifesto of Bogotá proposes a profound transformation of science, technology and higher education policies, understanding them as an integral part of democratic life. Its proposal is structured around three interdependent pillars:

1. Open science as a public and common good: Full openness of scientific processes (data, infrastructures, evaluation and social participation), ensuring equitable accessibility, collaborative and non-commercial infrastructures, respect for epistemic diversity, and the overcoming of economic, linguistic and technological barriers that limit the right to conduct research and to take part in knowledge production.
2. A new model of scientific evaluation with social relevance: Moving beyond metrics and international rankings; valuing qualitative, contextualised and participatory criteria; recognising diverse trajectories and the social, cultural, environmental and community impact of research; and a firm commitment to gender equity and to supporting early-career researchers and emerging trajectories.
3. Epistemic and technological sovereignty: Strengthening public and democratic control over platforms, infrastructures and technologies, including artificial intelligence, ensuring open repositories, free-access tools, regional interoperability and multilingualism—essential conditions for cognitive justice and for strengthening scientific democracies.

This commitment becomes possible, as highlighted during the public presentation by the Coordinator of the CLACSO Group (UAEM-Redalyc, Mexico), Arianna Becerril García: “We are doing something that has already been under construction. This is not a call to action for something that does not exist. It is a call to action to preserve what Latin America has been doing for years, and what it has been doing very well.” In this way, the three pillars proposed by the Manifesto of Bogotá take concrete form through 11 points structured around four guiding principles, which set out a horizon of action for scientific systems that are fairer, more open and more committed to the common good.

The first principle calls for an ethical, democratic and committed science, rooted in social justice, linguistic and cultural diversity, recognition of collective work, and the defence of the universal human right to science. This principle affirms that producing knowledge is also a political, ethical and communal act. The second principle points to the democratisation of knowledge and digital sovereignty, promoting non-commercial open access, strengthening interoperable and public infrastructures, and creating inclusive, representative and transparently governed information systems. The third principle focuses on transforming evaluation models, replacing dependence on commercial metrics with open, participatory and contextualised processes. It advocates for a more humane and situated evaluation, based on qualitative and regional indicators that value diverse trajectories and social impact. Finally, the fourth principle highlights the need to foster a culture of open science as a common good, supported by critical pedagogical practices, capacity-building programmes and learning communities that strengthen epistemic justice and consolidate genuine institutional change.

CeiED’s presence, through the Public Science Forum, at the presentation of the Manifesto of Bogotá reinforces its engagement in a global agenda that claims science as an instrument of peace, human dignity and sustainable development, reaffirming its mission to produce knowledge for the common good, defend the universal right to science, and contribute to more peaceful, solidaristic and democratic societies.