The Colombian educational system in Higher Education Institutions is underpinned by integrality of individuals, allowing them to defend and demand respect for a decent life, upholding their rights and fulfilling their duties. Unitrópico promotes culture in arts, science, technology and education, as well as in everyday life and in people’s creation. Nowadays, it is searching for the implementation of an integrated quality assurance system under the requirements of the Colombian Technical Standard ISO 9001:2015 and program accreditation as per the guidelines of the National Accreditation Council; however, the lack of processes and procedures oriented toward the attainment of institutional efficiency and effectiveness is evident. This is why, through a positivist paradigm employing a mixed descriptive method, an integrated methodological proposal for the institution was determined, to meet the requirements of a technical standard and the regulatory requirements to improve efficiency in service provision through the consolidation of continuous improvement at the institution toward the institutional accreditation, focusing the strengthening on quality principles and values.

Education has been the driving consolidation force of society, and the current dynamics and trends of development call for organizations’ and institutions' worldwide efficiency and competitiveness, which in turn raises the challenge for education to offer processes of high quality to encourage the development of basic skills, personal and professional, to those entering the education system. This research proposes a model for high quality accreditation of private higher education institutions to supplement in a two-way relation, the elements of the institutional accreditation of the National Council for Accreditation of Colombia with the systemic approach of the System of Quality Management NTC-ISO 9001. For its development, evaluation research was used and so was the CIPP model as a methodology, which involved the use of surveys with open questions in four institutions of higher education in the private sector. These are accredited institutions who have advanced implementation processes and ISO certification 9001. Also participating in the research is the ANC, an institution that provides recognition of institutional accreditation, and ICONTEC, organism responsible of certification and standards in Colombia. In this manner, the benefits and difficulties of the complementarity of models were identified.

In Colombia, public management requires a managerial transformation that facilitates the State to implement policies focused on improving the quality of life of citizens. The lack of techniques for management integration in public entities drives the research that leads to the design of a methodology for integration management. With a mixed approach and a sequential exploratory scope, the existing correlation between the requirements of the technical standards ISO 9001: 2015 (QMS), ISO 14001: 2015 (EMS) and the normative models Decree 1072 of 2015 (OHSMS), MECI: 2014 (Internal Control Standard Model) and MIPG: 2012 (Planning and Management Integrated Model), obtaining as a result the correlation matrix, product of the bibliographic review and the critical reading of the technical standards and the normative models of the State. From this correlation matrix, descriptive contents were developed, taken as a basis for the construction of perception surveys, applying statistical methods that support the degree of correlation of the requirements through Spearman´s correlation coefficient and the reliability of the data through Cronbach’s alpha, thus validating the content of the matrix, which is a guiding reference for the integration of management systems in public entities.

Quality in education in articulation with innovation as a collective process and change management as an outstanding element of the culture of Higher Education Institutions (HEI), has allowed to identify its relevance and adaptation in the context of quality assurance with projection in global sustainability. As a purpose, this article analyzes the contributions of innovation and change management at the level of Higher Education, within the framework of commitment to quality, in the formation of the individual, with a focus on his or her professional and occupational performance, defined by global parameters. Based on a literature review and content analysis of the literature, the evaluative research methodology, known by the acronym CIPP (Context, Input, Process and Product), was applied, which led to the identification of three types of relevant innovations in the sector and the initiatives of transformation and adaptation to the new scenarios. It is therefore concluded that the interaction of innovation with change management contributes significantly to the quality assurance expected in HEIs through quality assurance at the higher education level in Colombia.

This article is the result of methodological reflection on the relationship that could be established between the quality assurance system, according to ISO 9001: 2008 and the high quality accreditation process for undergraduate higher education programs of the Consejo Nacional de Acreditación in Colombia. It proposes a methodology that considers aspects and requirements of the referents mentioned, to build a tool of an advisory nature and establish the support of one referent over the other. The referents analyzed are linked to the Universidad Santo Tomás, where it is observed that the performance of the organization is affected by the duplication of activities and processes related to quality assurance