The Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) was created on the 29th of October of 1958 and has been strongly engaged in cooperating with society to improve the quality of life and promote sustainable and equitable development. The educational model of ESPOL combines academic excellence, with a strong focus on quantitative analysis, to meet both public and private sector needs and to offer solutions to society’s problems.

The faculties, research centers, and schools within ESPOL have been training strong, competent professionals in research and innovation in many STEM careers, as well as in social sciences and earth and life sciences. In particular, the Faculty of Social and Humanistic Sciences (FCSH) is responsible for five undergraduate and eight postgraduate educational programs including degrees in Auditing and Management Control, Business Administration, and Economics. At the postgraduate level, it offers the Master’s in Economic Sciences (which is oriented to a doctoral track), the Master’s in Finance, and the Master’s in Economics and Business Management.

The faculty also has various lines of research in areas such as in economics and public policies, natural resource economics, behavioral and experimental economics, macroeconomics, international economics, economics of human development and well-being, among others.

Additionally, ESPOL has the Economic Research Center (CIEC) attached to the FCSH. The mission of this center is to generate information, research, analysis, and knowledge both in economic matters and in business management in order to satisfy the demand and interest of the productive sectors and society. Its vision is to become the research center that contributes to the development of the country by promoting quality research that guides, evaluates, and designs economic development policies. To meet this objective, CIEC provides research, consulting, training, and technical advice services. It has highly qualified personnel who work with FCSH professors and collaborators from other educational and research institutions, using cutting-edge quantitative analysis tools (e.g. econometrics, mathematical optimization, etc.), to guarantee the quality and impact of our products.