CERTAIN effectively organizes and mobilizes our competencies into an interdisciplinary university center to serve as an unbiased entity at OSU to interface between industry, regulatory agencies, national laboratories, non-government organizations, and federal and private research foundations.

Vision: CERTAIN will lead cutting edge research and innovative programs in renewable, non renewable, and zero emission energy resources that transform the sustainable energy landscape

• Lead research and innovative programs in renewable, non-renewable, and zero emission energy resources
• Engage in energy based curriculum development and teaching
• Coordinate, facilitate and enhance outreach and engagement of energy centric research and informatics

Mission: Address critical questions related to society’s energy challenges by catalyzing transformative research, education, and outreach around these objectives:

• Promote innovative science and technology to meet growing energy demands
• Investigate critical resources needed for energy development
• Develop zero emission uses of fossil fuels
• Facilitate technologies integral for deep decarbonization
• Explore beneficial use of power generation systems
• Reduce environmental impacts of energy on water use

Technical Goals: Become Ohio State’s STEM-focused locus of technically-sound, data-driven natural resource-based energy science that:

• Implements knowledge generation, dissemination, and public outreach and engagement; 
• Explores technical innovation related to the identification, development, and exploitation of natural resources critical for the development of all forms of energy (solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, fossil fuels, nuclear, fusion, batteries, subsurface waste storage, and CO₂ management)
• Promotes the development, management, and transformation of energy resource utilization from carbon-intensive fossil fuels (coal, oil) to lower carbon-emitting fuels (nuclear, natural gas) or renewables (wind, geothermal, solar, biofuels)
• Creates guidelines for industry best practices 

In order to promote technological improvement and address environmental and other issues related to energy resource development, the primary functions of CERTAIN are to:

• facilitate communication, research collaboration, education, outreach, and proposal development among faculty and staff researchers within Ohio State.
• serve as a communication link and research partner involving industry, government agencies, NGOs, and universities throughout the region.
• provide a forum to facilitate discussion of energy and environmental issues related to renewable and non-renewable resource development.

The evolutionary transformation from SERC to CERTAIN reflects the progressive maturation of the oil and gas industry both in Ohio and in the US, and the inevitable need for a more balanced representation of renewable as well as non-renewable energy development and their environmental and socio-economic impacts to Ohio and the U.S.  Our strategic transition capitalizes on the wealth of expertise at OSU that can contribute to our understanding of the complex science, technologic, socio-economic and environmental challenges associated with development and deployment of renewable and non-renewable energy resources.