IFES is the result of the union of four former federal educational institutions: the Federal Center for Technological Education of Espírito Santo (Cefetes), the Federal Agricultural School of Alegre, the Federal Agricultural School of Colatina and the Federal Agricultural School of Santa Teresa. The history of these institutions is centuries old, the oldest of which is Cefetes, founded in 1909, during the government of Nilo Peçanha, under the name of the School of Apprentice Craftsmen of Espírito Santo. In December 2008, the then President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, sanctioned Law No. 11,892, which created 38 federal institutes of education, science and technology in the country. In Espírito Santo, Cefetes and the agricultural schools were integrated into a single structure, the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo.

The IFES, through the national contract between CAPES and IEEE has an unlimited open access agreement with IEEE that enables researchers to publish articles as open access without open access fees in all IEEE fully and hybrid open access journals. The agreement applies to all original research articles accepted for publication between 5 November 2024 – 30 October 2027. To benefit from this agreement, the corresponding author has to be affiliated with IFES. Please use the correct institution name and your institutional email address during submi​​ssion. It is recommended for authors to select the CC BY 4.0 license. The open access funding request will be approved by an OA administrator at CAPES. Overlength page charges or color fees are not covered by the agreement and will be charged to authors.