Universidade Aberta (UAb) is the public Portuguese distance education university. Pioneer in distance higher education in Portugal, it was founded in 1988 and it has been promoting actions related to higher education and continuous training. It has also contributed to developed important know-how that allows it to be the biggest provider of online courses in the country.

At present UAb is considered to be amongst the European mega-providers of e-learning, playing a prominent role in 1st and 2nd cycle (graduation and master's) educational offering. It also has PhD programs. Universidade Aberta’s Pedagogical Model is based on e-learning and on the intensive use of new tools for online communication, collaboration and learning.

Part of its duties are to conduct research, to support the participation of their teachers and researchers in scientific institutions and to promote cooperation and cultural, scientific and technical exchanges with similar national and foreign institutions.

The UAB currently hosts research units: LE @ D (The Distance Education and e-Learning Lab - research center dedicated to distance education, innovation and ICT); the CEMRI - Study Centre for Migration and Intercultural Relations, and the Polo Centre for Research in Art and Communication (CIAC), University of Algarve.

Universidade Aberta promotes the exchange of knowledge with the academic world, through the institutional hosting of PhD students and masters, research fellows, sharing of scientific equipment, acting also as the host institution of national and international scientific scope projects, led by researchers from UAB.

UAB also intervenes, together with other institutions in students training to develop research projects and to provide services to the community.