Abstract. -We establish here a well-posedness theory for the f (R) theory of modified gravity, which is a generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation. The scalar curvature R of the spacetime, which arises in the integrand of the Einstein-Hilbert functional, is replaced here by an arbitrary function f = f (R). The field equations involve up to fourth-order derivatives of the unknown spacetime metric, and the main challenge is to understand the structure of these high-order derivative terms. First of all, we propose a formulation of the initial value problem in modified gravity when the initial data are prescribed on a spacelike hypersurface. In addition to the induced metric and second fundamental form of the initial slice and the initial matter content, an initial data set for modified gravity must also provide the spacetime scalar curvature and its time-derivative. Next, in order to tackle the initial value problem, we introduce an augmented conformal formulation, as we call it, in which the spacetime scalar curvature is regarded as an independent variable. In particular, in the so-called wave gauge, we prove that the field equations of modified gravity reduce a coupled system of nonlinear wave-Klein-Gordon equations with defocusing potential, whose main unknowns are the conformally-transformed metric and the scalar curvature, as well as the matter fields. Based on this novel formulation, we are able to establish the existence of maximal globally hyperbolic developments of modified gravity when, for definiteness, the matter is represented by a scalar field. We analyze the so-called Jordan coupling and we work with the Einstein metric, which is conformally equivalent to the physical metric -the conformal factor depending upon the (unknown) scalar curvature. Our analysis of these conformal field equations in the Einstein metric leads us to a rigorous validation of the theory of modified gravity. We derive quantitative estimates in suitable functional spaces, which are uniform in terms of the nonlinearity f (R), and we prove that asymptotically flat spacetimes of modified gravity are 'close' to Einstein spacetimes, when the defining function f (R) in the action functional of modified gravity is 'close' to the Einstein-Hilbert integrand R.