Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

The Technical University of Loja was founded in 1971 in Loja, Ecuador to provide on-campus and distance education through offering 23 bachelor’s degrees and 20 distance programmes in four main areas; administrative, humanities and social sciences, technical and medicine and biology. Currently, the university serves around 20,000 students. Although this 47-year old institution is still fairly young, it boasts a new, state of the art campus, with excellent laboratories and student facilities including an advanced library and an innovation centre designed to mentor young entrepreneurs. UTPL is an autonomous institution, based on Christian values, with social and public purpose, being able to teach, develop research with scientific-administrative freedom, and participate in the development plans of the country, grant, recognise and revalue academic degrees and professional titles. The university has memorandums of understanding and cooperation agreements with several institutions in China, Spain, France, Austria and several Latin American countries to name but a few. The university is administered by the the religious association “Id of Redeeming Christ”. Their mission is to safeguard, develop the spirit and gospel values that emerge from the humanism of Christ in the university community. Loja was the thriving base from which Spanish conquistadors sallied forth to explore the jungle just over the mountains. Loja's main advantage is its proximity to one of Ecuador's most diverse protected areas, the vast Parque Nacional Podocarpus, spanning chilly highland páramo (grassland) and sweltering jungle within its wild confines. Its cuisine, its musical traditions and its university are known across Ecuador and beyond. The city’s slopes are filled with vast coffee plantations that must be seen.