The University of Beira Interior is a public university located in the city of Covilhã, Portugal. It was created in 1979, and has about 6,879 students distributed across a multiplicity of graduation courses, awarding all academic degrees in fields ranging from medicine, biochemistry, biomedical sciences and industrial design to aeronautical engineering, fashion design, mathematics, economics and philosophy. The university is named after the historical Beira region, meaning Beira Interior, the most interior area of Beira, mainly composed by the district of Guarda and the district of Castelo Branco, in today's Centro region.

Covilhã is a city and a municipality in the Centro region, Portugal. The city proper had 33,691 inhabitants in 2021. The municipality population in 2021 was 46,455 in an area of 555.60 square kilometres (214.52 sq mi). It is located in the Beiras e Serra da Estrela subregion and Beiras and Serra da Estrela Intermunicipal Community. The municipal holiday is October 20. Sometimes referred to as town of wool and snow, Covilhã is one of the main urban centres of the historical Beira Interior region. The proximity of the mountains offers dramatic scenery and a great environment for those fond of hiking, camping, mountain climbing and skiing. With an industrial tradition historically focused on textile industry supplied by an abundance of wool produced in the area since antiquity, but with a more diversified industry in contemporaneity, Covilhã, which was once known as the "Portuguese Manchester", is also a university city nowadays awarding degrees from aeronautical engineering to medicine to philosophy.