The Sustainability Institute at Ohio State is the university’s “front door” for sustainability and resilience research, student engagement, applied solutions and community outreach. We provide a single point of entry to the university to access the breadth and depth of knowledge across Ohio State to offer business, community, policymaker, and national and international networks connections to solve the real-world challenges of sustainability. We partner with academic units including six colleges and 18 departments. We also work with Ohio State labs, research centers and campus operations to facilitate collaboration, welcoming opportunities for partnerships with our external networks. The complex challenges of sustainability underscore the need for deep integration across a breadth of disciplines, including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, engineering, public health, business, law, planning, policy, arts and humanities.
Sustainability Institute Ohio State partners:
Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center
Center for Applied Plant Sciences
Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration
Center for Automotive Research
Center for Ethics and Human Values
Center for Urban and Regional Analysis
Coal Combustion Products Program
Environmental Professionals Network
Environmental and Social Sustainability Lab
Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation
Institute for Materials Research
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory
President and Provost's Council on Sustainability
Translational Data Analytics Institute
Case Study: COVID wastewater testing
The Ohio Water Resources Center, housed at Ohio State and led by Sustainability Institute-affiliated faculty, coordinates a statewide effort to analyze wastewater to potentially detect COVID-19 outbreaks. Partnering with local wastewater treatment plants, Ohio state agencies, U.S. EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers from Ohio State, the University of Toledo, Kent State University and the University of Akron are working together to develop resources and tools to monitor wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.