Topeka ? Kansas University officials told lawmakers Wednesday that the need for additional research space was of paramount importance when trying to win science grants.

“The pressure continues on us for additional research space,” said James Roberts, KU’s interim vice provost for research. “It comes down to additional space and additional resources to keep moving forward.”

Roberts’ comments were made to the Joint Committee on Economic Development, which was reviewing research projects at KU, Kansas State and Wichita State.

He said an example of the faculty demand for research space could be seen in KU’s purchase of three buildings formerly owned by the pharmaceutical company Oread Inc., which filed for bankruptcy. KU bought the buildings at 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive for $3.6 million in 2001.

Now the buildings, called the Life Sciences Research Laboratories, are filled with students and scientists who are working on new cancer treatments, cleaner chemicals and children’s health issues as part of research grants worth $42 million.

Overall, KU has gone from 45th in federally financed life sciences research in 1996 to 29th in 2001, he said.

KU also is building a $2.2 million structural biology center on the Lawrence campus that will be completed in August.

The next major research facility to be built will be the 200,000-square-foot biomedical facility at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

Joan Hunt, a senior associate dean at KU Medical Center, said she expected researchers would be able to move into the facility in 2005.

In 2002, lawmakers approved $120 million in bonds to build the biomedical facility, a biosecurity lab at Kansas State and aviation research facilities at Wichita State.

Clay Blair, former chairman of the Kansas Board of Regents, now serves as chief of a group that oversees development of the three research projects. He said they all were progressing.

Blair told lawmakers that authorizing the bond issue “fostered the best of relationships between the public sector, the private sector and the academic sector.”

He said construction of the projects would be something of a research experiment itself.

Doctoral students will be used to analyze the different methods being employed to build the projects and issue a report that will help the state in future projects, Blair said.

The KU facility will be built under the traditional method of seeking bids, while the Kansas State project will hire a construction manager to do most of the negotiating for services.