The State Technical University of Quevedo has played a leading role in the establishment of formal self-evaluation structures and processes in the national context and maintains a proactive disposition in order to sustain and strengthen a quality assurance system in accordance with new trends in higher education.

The Institutional Evaluation Policy for Universities and Polytechnic Schools within the framework of the Higher Education Quality Assurance System and the Inter-institutional Quality Assurance System approved by CACES, states that this system will be based mainly on the permanent self-evaluation that higher education institutions carry out on the fulfilment of their purposes.

The LOES, in its Art. 93, conceptualises quality as "the continuous, self-reflective search for improvement, assurance and collective construction of the culture of quality in higher education with the participation of all levels of higher education institutions and the Higher Education System".

In its Art. 96, the same LOES states that "Internal quality assurance is a set of actions carried out by higher education institutions, with the aim of developing and applying effective policies to promote the constant development of the quality of degree programmes and academic programmes, in coordination with other actors in the Higher Education System".

Because self-evaluation is the central process of internal quality assurance, UTEQ develops annual processes of institutional and career self-evaluation, according to the generic models of evaluation of the national evaluation and accreditation body. Self-evaluation is defined as the practice of collective reflection carried out by the university, its degree programmes and academic programmes, with the intention of achieving a greater understanding of itself (or themselves) and improving its progression towards the achievement of its objectives, increasing its effectiveness in responding to, and positively influencing the environment in which it operates.

Annually, UTEQ plans, executes and evaluates self-evaluation processes. The institutional self-evaluation and quality assurance processes are aimed at proving the availability and sufficiency of the information required by the self-evaluation methodology and the implemented Evaluation Model, as well as mobilising resources and articulating processes based on the proposed objectives.

Three phases are envisaged:

• Planning the self-assessment and monitoring process.
• Execution
• Report generation and delivery of results.

The main results are concentrated in four priority lines of action:

• Significant progress in internal self-assessment processes with a view to improvement and/or external accreditation at institutional, degree programme and programme level.
• The gradual construction of a self-assessment culture within the University, which already has groups of academics interested in and committed to quality development and with experience of internal self-assessment processes for improvement and/or external accreditation purposes.
• The refinement of procedures and tools to harmonise internal processes with those used by the national accreditation body CACES.
• A specialised contribution to the development of institutional accreditation and the monitoring of its outcomes.