In the last years, the work developed by different countries in order to promote access in higher education has been important (the Organization of Ibero-American States [OEI, in its Spanish acronym], 2010). Nevertheless, there are still social, cultural, economic and geographical gaps that make equal access difficult (Aponte-Hernández, 2008); being the Latin American and Caribbean context one of the most restrictive regarding access in higher education (International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean [IESALC, in its Spanish acronym], 2006).

European and Latin American countries consider that increasing the access and the number of graduates in higher education is a strategic goal which needs work and resources. The achievement of this aim must deem that “the attainment of educational potential in higher education should not be the result of personal and social circumstances, including factors such as socio-economic setting, sex, ethnic group, immigrant condition, place of residence, age or disability”(the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2008, p. 14).

That is, necessary measures must be implemented to ensure that personal and social situations do not determinate its academic access and success in higher education; considering that current trends in this level are (OECD, 2008): (1) extension of undergraduate education systems; (2) service diversification; (3) heterogeneous grouping; (4) new financial measures; (5) increasing importance of results and balances; (6) new perspectives on institutional governance; and (7) connection, mobility, and global collaboration.

Taking into account the above-mentioned premises, and the strategic goal pursued, the European Commission gives priority to the establishment of steps that encourage the development of higher education in Latin America in order to permit regional development, in socio-economic terms (the Official Journal of the European Union [OJEU], 2006). To put into operation these guidelines was the seeds of birth of ALFA III, the programme for cooperation between higher education institutions of the European Union and Latin America, where the ACCEDES project “Academic access and success of vulnerable groups in risk environments of Latin America” is involved (Ref. DCI/ALA/2011-232).

ACCEDES (http://edo.uab.cat/accedes) count on the participation of 24 institutions for higher education from 20 countries (16 Latin Americans) and whose aim is to improve the academic access, promotion, and success of vulnerable groups who live in risk environments of Latin America. Among other lines of action, there is one aimed at identifying strategies and programs in higher education for the inclusion of vulnerable groups. This line, which forms part of the main goal –to promote networks among different institutions for higher education in Latin America-, consists of: (1) identifying bibliography and resources related to academic access, stay, and success in higher education; and (2) identifying best practices (BP) carried out in higher education in order to encourage undergraduate students’ access, stay, and success.

But, what does vulnerability mean? We define vulnerability as “the condition that affects social groups who have passed through [or who pass through] an exclusion and discrimination, product of structural conditions, that can bring them to be socially, politically, educationally, culturally, and economically-excluded, and this system is the one that cause the belonging and integration of someone into the society (Gairín & Suárez, 2012, p. 45).

This contribution focuses its interest on describing the process followed to identify BP in the Latin American context, under the premise that these BP should be spread over other institutions from this field when it comes time to improve situations of inequality. It is sine qua non that every BP identified complies with some selection criteria –described in the following section- such as transferable and replication.

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