The design and synthesis of complex polymeric materials such as multifunctional copolymers is of importance for a variety of applications ranging from drug delivery systems to organic light-emitting diodes. We will present a novel methodology inspired by Nature's biomaterials towards the synthesis of such polymeric materials by using a combination of supramolecular chemistry (including hydrogen-bonding, Coulombic interactions and metal-coordination) and a living polymerization technique, ring-opening metathesis polymerization. In particular, we will present the design and realization of so-called 'universal polymer backbones' that are based on random, alternating, or block copolymers and possess recognition moieties that self-assemble with their complementary receptor molecules with very high association strengths. Through the employment of living polymerization techniques, we can control the architecture of such polymeric systems and we have proven that the self-assembly of our polymers is quantitative, reversible, and can be achieved in an orthogonal fashion. Therefore, we can synthesize from a single polymer backbone a large variety of functionally varied polymers, which widely differ in their physical and chemical properties, simply by altering the functionalization strategy. Finally, we will also present a variety of applications of these universal polymer backbones in template polymerizations, the controlled, patterned and reversible functionalization of surfaces and particles and the formation of highly cross-linked polymeric networks.