As a higher education institution, the University of Algarve has Education at its core. This is the guiding principle that is divided into three main areas, namely: Education, Research and Extension and Governance – guiding principles of its Strategic Plan. UAlg supports the promotion and transformation of ideas and talents into business opportunities and entrepreneurial initiatives, promoting the creation of start-ups and spin-offs, towards creative and dynamic businesses, providing interdisciplinary office spaces for research and development, prototyping, meetings and market development, merging the concepts of production and creativity.

Ensuring the necessary conditions to support entrepreneurs, researchers and companies in the validation and spinoff process, the University of Algarve has an active role on pre-incubation, incubation, post-incubation, and virtual incubation of companies, aiming to create new and innovative knowledge based companies and stimulating interaction between the business and the academic environment. In 2004 the University of Algarve has established the Division for Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer (CRIA), aiming to support intellectual property rights, entrepreneurship, incubation (physical and virtual) and technology transfer, towards a more competitive and innovative region.

The incubation model of the University of Algarve aims to excel by the connection to its knowledge centres, by the laboratory and office space available, and particularly by the consulting support it offers, enhancing the value of the knowledge produced and its connection to smart specialization strategy. The incubator develops its activities based on local, regional, national and international partnerships, in the scope of research and development, innovation, prototyping, marketing, funding, and internationalization. The goal is to capitalize on the existing and growing networks as way to aggregate critical mass, knowledge and technical capacity.