A research area that has obtained increasing interest during the last decade concerns improvement of macromolecular properties by changes in the macromolecular architecture. One group of these materials is dendritic polymers, which are highly branched structures exhibiting very different properties compared with linear polymers. One potential application for these polymers is as radiation curable thermoset resins. This article describes a study where the use of an aliphatic hyperbranched polyester as a base for new radiation curable thermoset resins. The hyperbranched polyesters have been characterized with respect to cure rate and final mechanical properties compared with conventional resins. It is shown that hyperbranched polyesters can be used as versatile scaffolds for various radiation curable resin structures. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.