As part of its objectives, RIACES has developed several initiatives leading to support the installation of systems that secure the qualified functioning paths of the agencies or evaluation and accreditation institutions in the Iberoamerican region: being periodic evaluation one of them.

These processes are lays within the framework of a common effort to advance toward the mutual recognition of accreditation decisions (and, therefore, of the quality of the higher education programs of the different countries of the region) bearing in mind the higher education integration.

RIACES judges indispensable to seize the successful international efforts and experiences, agreeing to the internationally accepted practices and criteria in quality evaluation and accreditation. This is why, is consider as a basic framework of reference for the evaluation of the accreditation processes developed by the agencies, the Best Practices Guidelines approved by INQAAHE in 2007 and the European standards developed by ENQA.

However, the criteria approved by RIACES are expressly named Guidelines for Good Practices because is intended to emphasize that they do not constitutes a mandatory disposition, and that the evaluation process does not drives to a positive or negative decision, but to an evaluation based on the improvement. The external evaluation report, gives an account of the degree in which tha agency fulfills its purposes and the Best Practice Guidelines. RIACES's Board of Directors,by ratifying the external evaluation report, turns it into a useful document to take decisions regarding the mutual recognition of the agencies work and actions.

Regarding this, RIACES has elaborated tools destined to the Institutions- national, regional and international- that formally develops higher education quality evaluation and accreditation. It is important to point out, that is a working document, that is expected to be enriched by the actual evaluation experiences as they are taking place.

It can also be useful to those agencies that are currently in the early stages of their development, by defining certain general orientations that can facilitate the decision making process regarding its institution, structure and procedures.