Improving the academic performance of state public universities in the West Central Region of Mexico: 2001-2020

Measurable results in the performance of higher education institutions, as well as the standardization of criteria for validating these results and promoting the strengthening of higher education in the country, are closely linked to the design and consideration of the series of indicators mentioned at the beginning of this text. It is natural that the constant transformation of the environment and educational and social needs pose the need to review, expand or diversify some of these measurement instruments; but it is also true that they have been essential in the necessary standardization of work criteria among states, in the field of higher education. Therefore, it is not surprising that organizations such as the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education (ANUIES) and the Consortium of Mexican Universities (CUMex) have included some of these indicators as entry and permanence requirements.
It should be noted that one of the uses given to these measurement tools shared by the state public universities has been to identify achievements based on regional and national comparisons. This, on the one hand, motivates institutions to design actions that allow them to strengthen themselves and become more competitive (which benefits not only the academic communities, but also society in general), and, on the other hand, reveals problems in some institutions, as well as the opportunity to find appropriate strategies and actions to achieve improvement.
We present, then, the systematization of the performance indicators of the six state public universities that are in the RCO of the ANUIES (Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, University of Colima, University of Guanajuato, University of Guadalajara, Michoacan University of San Nicolas de Hidalgo and Autonomous University of Nayarit), confident that this document will serve both for self-evaluation and individual reflections that each of these universities considers necessary, as well as to contribute to a panoramic reading of the higher education situation in the country, already thinking about the lines and strategies to follow in the coming years. We believe, for all that has been said, that this work will be an essential reference for our SPUs and our educational authorities.