CEC-EPN

National Polytechnic School

(Spanish: Escuela Politécnica Nacional)
EPN (National Polytechnic University)
Motto	"E scientia hominis salus" (in Latin)
Type	Public university
Established	1869
Rector	Engineer Jamie Calderon Segovia, M.A.
Undergraduates	10000
Postgraduates	2500
Other students	7000
Location	Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador 0°12′38″S 78°29′20″W / 0.21056°S 78.48889°W / -0.21056; -78.48889Coordinates: 0°12′38″S 78°29′20″W / 0.21056°S 78.48889°W / -0.21056; -78.48889
Campus	Urban, 152,000 square metres (38 acres)
Mascot	Owl
Website	epn.edu.ec (in 5 languages)

The National Polytechnic University (Spanish: Escuela Politécnica Nacional), also known as EPN, is a public university in Quito, Ecuador. The campus, called "José Rubén Orellana", is located at the sector center-oriental of Quito. It occupies an area of 15.2 hectares and has a built area of around 62,000 metres². Its student body numbers approximately 10,000 of which thirty percent are women. The main campus encompasses ten teaching and research faculties, in addition to four technical and specialized institutes. EPN was founded in 1869 with the aim of becoming the first technical and technological center in the country. Since its beginnings, EPN adopted the polytechnic university model, which stresses laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. At the campus, there are some libraries with a content primarily oriented to engineering and scientific topics.

EPN has been consistently ranked among the top universities (the so-called Group A) in Ecuador by CEAACES

The National Polytechnic University was founded on August 27, 1869 by the National Convention of Ecuador and the former Ecuadorian President Gabriel García Moreno. EPN is the second-oldest public university in Ecuador, after Central University of Ecuador.

For this purpose, García Moreno hired members of a German Jesuit religious order to manage the university and the Quito Astronomical Observatory. Juan Bautista Menten, Louis Dressel, Theodor Wolf, Joseph Kolberg and Luis Sodiro were among the first scientists who taught at the EPN. It received the name of "Instituto Superior Politecnico", and Menten was its first director; some other notable professors include: Emilio Muellendorf, Armando Wenzel, Cristian Boetzkes, José Epping, Eduardo Brugier, Luis Heiss, Alberto Claessen, P. Clemente Faller; and Joseph Honshteter. The newborn institution was conceived as the first research center of Ecuador and was created with the purpose of contributing to the scientific and technological development of the country. And these academics excelled in several fields such as cartography and mineralogy (Wolfe), Chemistry (Dressel), Botany (Sodiro), Architecture (Kolberg), and other fields of engineering. The advent of electricity to the city of Quito was in part the work of Kolberg and Brugier.