Understanding the Quartile Conundrum: Research Evaluation in Spain and Latin America

Quartile rankings of journals have become shorthand for research quality in many national evaluation systems. This Commentary offers a non-systematic documentary analysis of this phenomenon in Spain and selected Latin American systems. It conceptualizes these arrangements as quartile regimes: configurations of rules, indicators, organizational routines, and incentives that make the Journal Citation Reports or SCImago quartile position of a journal function as a high-stakes proxy for research quality. The article draws on legal and policy texts, agency criteria, reform documents, peer-reviewed literature, and selected integrity cases used as illustrative vignettes rather than prevalence evidence. Spain is analyzed as an early and influential case in which sexenios and accreditation made journal indicators central to individual careers, although the 2024 sexenio criteria now move explicitly toward qualitative narratives, broader outputs, and responsible indicators. Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru are treated as purposive Latin American cases that show distinct pathways through individual recognition schemes, graduate-program evaluation, journal-indexing systems, career committees, and publication bonuses. The article argues that quartile regimes reshape publication language, research agendas, disciplinary hierarchies, authorship practices, and integrity risks, with particularly strong effects in the social sciences and humanities and in regional journal ecosystems. Current reform efforts, including the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, FOLEC-CLACSO, and the ALAEC manifesto, show that quartiles can be repositioned as weak contextual signals within broader, field-sensitive frameworks that value quality, bibliodiversity, multilingual communication, open science, and societal relevance.