This paper illustrates a case study of teaching and research applied to the abandoned mining landscapes of the Sulcis area, located in the south-east side of Sardinia, one of the poorest in Europe. Although the region’s critical condition in the present, the area is neverthe- less extremely rich in fascination and history. It offers unique natural landscapes, mostly pristine, a variety of archeological sites and, as mentioned, the ruins of the mining installations. All of this makes fore- seeable a concrete possibility of regeneration for the area, based on tourism, one of the island primary resources. The local institutions of Sulcis started a partnership with the University of Cagliari aiming to pursuit not just a practical and economical outcome in the immediate present, more a cultural and deeper rescue with a wider perspective. In the following pages, we present our academic activities in this mark and how we managed to guarantee fruitful superpositions of peda- gogy, design, and research in our work within this kind of cooperation. Our focus is, therefore, the relationship between researching and teaching activities and the actions in support of the territory, pur- sued in a joint venture with the political institution. During these experiences, we defined a strategy to intercross these different lay- ers, bringing the real and concrete dimension into our classroom, sharing our work with the students, and, at the same time, transfer- ring the fruits of the teaching experiences to the territory. The cor- respondence between these two levels is not free of ambiguity and contradictions, however, we are convinced that it might show very important and fruitful outcomes. As design professors of the Architecture School of Cagliari, we live a condition that we believe is a special and interesting case study. A condition that at first sight might appear a limitation, whilst it also proved to be an opportunity and it offered the chance to experiment with innovative research tools and teaching methods. The school is located in Sardinia, a poor territory and above all an island, a place that strives every day with the difficulties of physical communica- tion with the outside world and that it has introjected this condition from its past and the character of its cultures. A condition of isola- tion that led people who are responsible for the social and econom- ic growth of territory, to address questions of main relevance to the local university community in the past few years. Therefore, the con- crete management of the territory and the studying and teaching activity converged and intertwined in the design studios attracting real-world problems presented by the political, social and economic reality of the territory. Keeping together the different areas, making the fields of concrete cases and teaching converge while maintaining the specificity and coherence of the actions developed, is a difficult but stimulating task that we’ve been tackling in the last ten years. From the beginning, it seemed clear that the contribution of the school to the urgencies of the territory, despite the cultural and sci- entific approach, should not merely involve small groups of research- ers and professors. On the contrary, the idea was of an expanded experience, which would integrate concrete proposals elaborat- ed with mature designers, with new reflections and debates about the adequate and pertinent solutions to be given in front of spe- cific topics, open to the student community in design studios, lec- tures and workshops. A challenge of openness that is currently Pier Francesco Cherchi University of Cagliari Marco Lecis University of Cagliari Marco Moro University of Cagliari Research and Teaching as Actions Supporting the Specificity of a Territory: Developing a Design and Pedagogic Strategy for the Abandoned Mining Landscapes of Sardinia 2019 ACSA/EAAE TEACHERS CONFERENCE PROCEEDING - CH2 233