AbstractThe bioethics research conducted in Ibero‐American countries has been very much restricted to its own realm.The aim of this study was to perform a bibliometric evaluation of bioethics papers by authors affiliated with Ibero‐American institutions, and to determine how their work influences global bioethics literature.We performed a literature search in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) and Scopus.We identified a total of 5,975 documents, of which 84.3% were articles, 11.6% reviews and 4.1% book chapters. The median number of citations per paper was higher in English‐language journals.Only 10 articles published between 2010 and 2019 in peer‐reviewed bioethics journals and produced exclusively by authors from Ibero‐American institutions garnered more than 15 citations.Our study suggests that if researchers from Ibero‐American institutions want to influence global bioethical thinking, they must make the required leap in quality to be able to publish in high‐quality bioethics and mainstream journals.