The Ohio State University
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

The Ohio State University is dedicated to advancing education, research, and innovation related to energy, the environment, and sustainability. To further those goals, the Ohio State Sustainability Institute offers student grant funding to support sustainability research and campus as a living lab projects.

The Sustainability Institute offers funding to support undergraduate, graduate or professional student research or campus as a lab projects in the areas of sustainability. These grants support student research or projects that directly impact university operations; incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion themes; and/or connect to our communities and allow opportunities to use our campuses as living laboratories. SI offers a pool of $40,000 each spring semester (up to $5,000 per funded project) to support this work.

In spring 2021, 11 unique projects were funded with a couple of examples included below:

• PhD Student (School of Environment and Natural Resources), funded towards research to better understand community perceptions of rain garden planning and design in the City of Columbus.
• A group of undergraduate environmental engineering students working together to examine intersecting technology and sustainability through student and community partnerships towards food justice.
• Entomology master’s student that is using Ohio State’s campus as a case study to determine the impact of urban heat islands on mosquito seasonality.

Full 2021 list of grant awardees: https://si.osu.edu/news/next-generation-sustainable-students-awarded-2021-sustainability-institute-research-grants

Ohio State gives positive recognition to excellent research both within and across disciplines during promotion and tenure decisions. In addition to departments, there are numerous centers and units at Ohio State that foster connections across disciplines and provide support for interdisciplinary research and creative expression. In addition to the Sustainability Institute, many of the centers and units include sustainability topics as part of their research focus (e.g. Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, Center for Applied Plant Sciences, Center for Urban and Regional Analysis). Collaborations across departments continue to increase, in part aided by the work of the Discovery Themes focus areas, which in FY21 included Chronic Brain Injury, Translational Data Analytics, Foods for Health, Food and AgriCultural Transformation, Global Arts and Humanities, Infectious Diseases, and Materials & Manufacturing for Sustainability. 

The Ohio State University has an important role as a public, land-grant, research university to search for solutions to societal challenges. With an enduring mission to serve our local and global communities, Ohio State has a strong commitment to sustainability across campus activities including teaching and learning, research and creative expression, community outreach and engagement, and campus operations. The complex challenges of sustainability and the need to improve social, economic and environmental conditions underscore the need for the deep integration Ohio State has across a breadth of disciplines including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, engineering, public health, business, law, planning, policy, arts and humanities. These academic units and other internal partners such as research labs and centers, Student Life, and Administration and Planning departments collaborate and leverage our research and knowledge toward a more sustainable and resilient campus as well as our local and global communities.

In 2019, Ohio State merged the Office of Energy and Environment with the Smart and Resilient Economy Discovery Theme to form the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State (SI). Since that merger, SI’s Sustainability Seed Grant Program has encouraged interdisciplinary scholarship by requiring all proposals to include researchers from at least two distinct disciplines. This grant program enables proof-of-concept research that positions interdisciplinary teams for external funding opportunities. SI also provides ongoing financial and personnel support to six faculty research leads focused in three priority research areas of the institute (1. Healthy air, land, and water, 2. Sustainable Energy and 3. Smart and Resilient Communities). These faculty research leads are charged with building and supporting interdisciplinary communities of researchers at Ohio State.

Interdisciplinary endeavors are noted in policies at the University, College and Department level.

From Board of Trustees Bylaws and Rules (Chapter 3335-6-0, A4 & D; https://trustees.osu.edu/bylaws-and-rules/3335-6, retrieved 5/2/23):

“Each tenure initiating unit is responsible for establishing criteria for appointment, reappointment, and promotion and tenure that are consistent with this mission and for ensuring that every faculty appointment, reappointment, and promotion and tenure recommendation is consistent with this mission.”

“In evaluating the candidate's qualifications in teaching, scholarship, and service, reasonable flexibility shall be exercised, balancing, where the case requires, heavier commitments and responsibilities in one area against lighter commitments and responsibilities in another. In addition, as the university enters new fields of endeavor, including interdisciplinary endeavors, and places new emphases on its continuing activities, instances will arise in which the proper work of faculty members may depart from established academic patterns. In such cases care must be taken to apply the criteria with sufficient flexibility.”

The degree to which tenure initiating units expect and/or give positive recognition to interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and/or multidisciplinary research varies from unit to unit. A college-level example is featured below.

From Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure Criteria and Procedures for The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (VII, A1b., https://oaa.osu.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/governance-documents/college-of-food-agricultural-and-environmental-sciences/CFAES-APT_2019-07-03.pdf, retrieved 5/2/23):

“For promotion to associate professor with tenure, a faculty member is expected to have: published a body of work in high-quality peer-reviewed venues…The following attributes of the body of work are considered:… collaborative work, including interdisciplinary and team-based research, is valued, and indeed is essential to some types of inquiry. The candidate's intellectual contributions to collaborative work must be clearly and fairly described to permit accurate assessment.”

University Libraries at Ohio State offers a suite of support services available to the university community. A selection of these services which overlap in some capacity with sustainability research and learning are highlighted here:

University Libraries employ a suite of subject librarians available to assist the university communications with research queries and reference questions. Many subject librarians focus on areas that are aligned with sustainability scholarship. In addition to subject librarians, the libraries employ specialists in areas such as data visualization.

University Libraries is home to several special collections, some of which are directly aligned with sustainability topics including the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program and the Ohio Public Policy Archives.

The libraries provide research and scholarship services including copyright, data management, data visualization, GIS and mapping, publishing, research impact and more. Additionally, the libraries provide teaching and course support.

https://library.osu.edu/