Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) is a public university situated in the Guayas Province city of Guayaquil in Ecuador.
It was founded in 1958 when Camilo Ponce Enriquez, then president of the Republic of Ecuador, issued an executive decree to provide the city with a higher education institute specialising in technical and scientific education. Inauguration of the institute took place the following year, with the first lessons commencing in 1959.
Initially lacking its own campus, its first site was the old Casona building of the Universidad de Guayaquil. Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral bought the buildings in the surrounding areas and through the years acquired more sites and the university started to flourish. In 1995, the university started to leave its historic founding campus and move to a new campus on the outskirts of Guayacil. This included taking over a protected forest as part of the land.
Today there are a total of three campuses, the main one being Campus Gustavo Galindo. Most of the facilities, administration and research centres are found here and it is easily accessible due to its proximity to the Via Perimetral.
Campus de Penas is the former central site, however with the area lacking the accommodation the university needed to branch out and become more modern, only a few facilities remain here due to the move to Campus Gustavo Galindo.
Campus Via de la Costa is home to the research facilities associated with degrees relating to the sea, and the CENAIM-ESPOL Foundation.
ESPOL operates eight main faculties: natural sciences and mathematics; social and humanistic sciences; geosciences engineering; maritime engineering, biological science, oceanographic sciences and natural resources; electrical engineering and computing sciences; mechanical engineering and production sciences; life of sciences; and visual design and communication.
