Founded in 1973, the University of Aveiro (UA) is a leading Portuguese public institution recognised for its innovation in education, research and cooperation with society. Combining both university and polytechnic subsystems, UA brings together 16 departments and four schools, fostering a uniquely interdisciplinary and flexible environment.

The University of Aveiro is a university oriented towards investigation and deeply committed to developing state-of-the-art research, in fields of strategic knowledge. At the University of Aveiro there are 20 research units, five of them with Associate Laboratory status.

In the context of the POLINA project, UA will synthetize PAAs with pendant groups for subsequent coupling of click-chemistry moieties, and lead the light-based fabrication of human Living Materials using these clickable polymers as bioorthogonal cell-interlinking macromolecules with light-configurable geometries.