PolymAct proposes to cover the investigation of electroactive gel actuators all the way from material development to aspects pertaining to system integration. PolymAct will be able to address the peculiarities of electroactive gels and harness them to obtain optimal performance in diverse applications.

PolymAct will focus on the following four areas of research:
- Polymer development, allowing materials to be designed with specific properties such as pore size, pore size gradient, pore shape, actuation speed, actuation reversibility, response to electrical stimuli (expansion or contraction), strain.
- Gel characterisation from diverse aspects (structural, mechanical, chemical) to ensure the suitability of individual formulations to various possible applications, to obtain the necessary parameters to enable future control design.
- Sensing techniques: to obtain feedback information on the actuation, therefore making it possible to realise closed-loop actuation control.
- System integration: to address some of the most critical issues in building complete actuation systems, such as electrode fabrication and the integration of the gel with various system materials, including flexible and stretchable substrates.