As Ohio State faces increasingly complex challenges— a sustainability imperative, reduced access to capital, an aging physical plant, and a vision centered on increased collaboration—the Framework ensures that mission drives development of the physical environment. The plan establishes guiding principles, supports a long-term vision for the campus, defines projects that propel the university toward this vision, and utilizes an innovative decision support system to help ensure that planning integrates academic, strategic, financial and physical considerations across the university.

A structure for directing change over time, the Framework Plan supports a rational, data-driven process that spans the topics of academic and research facilities, arts, athletics, recreation, health sciences, residential life, open space, transportation and parking, energy and infrastructure, and sustainability. Its key innovation applies an integrated analysis function that synthesizes academic, financial, and physical information to planning and design challenges. It relies on a series of interactive software tools which act as decision support systems. The tools power an integrated capital planning workflow. They are capable of discovering opportunities for intervention, prioritizing planning solutions, and exploring funding and sequencing implications.