Metrics by Default: Bibliometric Gatekeeping, Institutional Logics, and Early-Career Research Evaluation in India

Journal-based bibliometric indicators continue to dominate research evaluation globally despite sustained advocacy for reform. However, the mechanisms by which they become institutionally entrenched, and the structural conditions that make them difficult to dislodge, remain poorly understood. Particularly in rapidly expanding research systems in the Global South. This article addresses that gap through a systematic qualitative investigation of how bibliometric indicators are operationalized as institutional gatekeepers within India's national post-doctoral fellowships and early-career selection processes in STEM. India represents a critical and underexamined case. It’s the world's third-largest producer of scientific publications, combining quantitative growth imperatives with limited evaluation infrastructure capacity and facing structural asymmetries in international publishing. These situations amplify reliance on metrics and shift their costs onto those who are unfavorably positioned to resist them.Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 25 early-and mid-career researchers, and fellowship administrators across four case settings - the INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship, the National Postdoctoral Fellowship (NPDF), institutional postdoctoral fellowships, and retrospective accounts from mid-career researchers in STEM. The study reveals a metrics-governed gatekeeping architecture, where quantitative screening serves as the primary filter before any qualitative assessment. This logic generates field-specific distortions, reproduces structural inequities under the guise of objectivity, incentivizes volume over significance, and creates systemic vulnerabilities to metric manipulation and research misconduct. We theorize these dynamics through the lens of commensuration, institutional logics, and the sociology of quantification. Despite policy discourse emphasizing quality and societal impact, operational evaluation infrastructures continue to rely on bibliometrics because metrics reduce administrative complexity and create the appearance of objectivity & transparency. The article concludes with evidence-based recommendations for context-sensitive reform appropriate to India's research ecosystem and transferable to other rapidly expanding research systems in the Global South.