This guide is designed to provide a clear but flexible framework for Ohio State faculty, staff, and students to design, implement, or research sustainability initiatives that connect education, research, operations, and community engagement. It supports faculty and student onboarding into experiential, sustainability-focused learning, aligns with Sustainability Institute and Office of Academic Affairs experiential education goals and ensures documentation and continuity across Ohio State campuses and community partnerships.
Faculty Pathway Guide
Defining "living labs"
Living Labs are the applied, integrative projects where real-world systems – on campus or in the community – serve as platforms for teaching, research, and problem-solving.
Three interconnected types of Living Labs define Ohio State’s model:
Core Features: Long-term, place-based projects on university or partner property. Blend research, operations, and education.
Typical Outcomes: Demonstration sites, ongoing research, and community engagement.
Example Projects: Mansfield Ecolab, Olentangy Wetlands, Waterman Farm
Core Features: Classes or research using Ohio State's own systems and sustainability goals as laboratories.
Typical Outcomes: Operational insights, sustainability analytics, student research reports.
Example Projects: EEDS capstone campus projects, Smart Columbus collaborations.
Core Features: Courses or research partnering with external communities or institutions to address sustainability challenges.
Typical Outcomes: Policy recommendations, co-created tools, community-based solutions.
Example Projects: EEDS community partnerships, City of Columbus sustainability projects.
Core Principles
The Living Lab model at Ohio State is rooted in the belief that the university itself, and its surrounding communities, are fertile grounds for experimentation, learning, and transformation. Whether place-based, campus-oriented, or community-engaged, every Living Lab represents a dynamic process through which teaching, research, and operations intersect to advance sustainability in practice.
These core principles express the shared DNA of all Living Labs at Ohio State. They are meant to guide new initiatives, align diverse projects under a common framework, and articulate how experiential learning contributes to the university’s broader mission of sustainability and innovation.
1 Integration of Learning, Research, and Action
Living Labs merge academic inquiry with applied experimentation, giving students and faculty opportunities to test ideas and generate knowledge that has real-world impact.
2 Collaboration Across Boundaries
Effective Living Labs connect faculty, students, operations staff, and external partners in reciprocal partnerships. These relationships extend learning beyond disciplinary and institutional walls, fostering collective problem-solving.
3 Alignment with the Six Dimensions of Sustainability
Each Living Lab advances at least one of the Sustainability Institute's six dimensions of sustainability—Environment, Economy, Health, Society, Policy, and Technology—ensuring projects are both interdisciplinary and globally relevant.
4 Commitment to Measurable Outcomes
Living Labs produce tangible results: operational improvements, community solutions, or new insights into sustainability systems. Each project should articulate clear goals, learning outcomes, and methods for assessment.
5 Continuity and Replicability
By documenting methods, data, and lessons learned, Living Labs create institutional memory. Each project contributes to a growing ecosystem of knowledge that others can build upon.
6 Inclusive and Equitable Participation
Living Labs invite participation from diverse voices—students, staff, faculty, and community members—to ensure that sustainability work is shared, just, and representative of multiple perspectives.
Together, these principles define Living Labs not as isolated projects, but as an evolving practice, a way of learning and collaborating that embeds sustainability into the life of the university.
Living Lab Blueprint Template
Each Living Lab type can adapt the following framework to its specific context and scale.
Identify a sustainability challenge connected to campus or community systems. Align with one or more of the six sustainability dimensions.
Example questions:
- What challenge are we addressing?
- Which dimensions apply?
- What evidence supports the need?
Build early relationships with operations, faculty, or community partners. Clarify ownership and shared value.
Example questions:
- Who are the collaborators?
- How are responsibilities structured?
Integrate project into courses, capstones, or research. Define learning objectives and data outcomes.
Example questions:
- How do students engage?
- What deliverables or data will emerge?
Fork 1: Site-based projects define timeline, scope, safety, and resources.
Fork 2: Campus/community projects outline methods, analysis, and partner communication plans.
Example questions:
- What ensures success?
- What belongs to Ohio State vs. external partners?
Establish documentation and reporting protocols to ensure continuity and institutional learning.
Example questions:
- How is progress captured?
- Who maintains updates?
Evaluate outcomes, impacts, and lessons learned. Assess student experience and stakeholder benefits.
Example questions:
- What worked or failed?
- How can others build upon this work?
Support and Resources
Successful Living Lab projects depend not only on creative ideas and committed partners, but also on the infrastructure that makes these efforts feasible, sustainable and scalable across the university. Faculty and staff repeatedly emphasize that experiential, real-world learning requires time, coordination and consistent support. To expand the number and quality of Living Lab initiatives at Ohio State, the Sustainability Institute and partnering units aim to provide accessible tools, clear points of contact and reliable mechanisms for collaboration, documentation and funding.
The resources below foster an Ohio State Living Lab ecosystem. They are designed to help instructors launch new projects, sustain existing ones and connect their work to a broader campus-wide network of experiential learning and sustainability practice.
Mentorship Network
The Sustainability in Action Subcommittee of the Sustainability Education and Learning Committee serves as advisors by living lab theme or project type.
Funding Resources
Competitive funding for cross-campus or community-linked projects.
Exemplar Living Labs
A curated collection of sustainability living lab efforts demonstrating variety of type, partners engaged and project outcomes.