  The idea that General Relativity could be an effective model, of a yet
unknown theory of gravity, has gained momentum among theoretical physicists.
The polynomial affine model of gravity is an alternative model of affine
gravity that possesses many desirable features to pursue a quantum theory of
gravitation. In this paper we argue that such features are a consequence of the
lack of a metric structure in the building of the model, even though a emergent
metric could be defined. The model introduces additional degrees of freedom
associated to the geometric properties of the space, which might shed light to
understand the nature of the dark sector of the Universe. When the model is
coupled to a scalar field, it is possible to define inflationary scenarios.
