On Monday, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is scheduled to sign into law a measure that many Kansans hope will spur a boom in biosciences research and business opportunities in the state.

The Kansas Economic Growth Act is a visionary plan that calls for $500 million to be distributed to bioscience research and business ventures over the next 10 years. It will involve research at state universities and venture capital for businesses across the state. The legislators who drew up the blueprint were careful to spread the potential benefits across the state to rural and urban areas and to all of the state’s universities.

The vision is set; the challenge now is to make it a reality for Kansas.

Much of the responsibility for doing that will be concentrated in a nine-member board appointed by the governor, legislative leaders and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. To insure the link to university research, the Kansas Board of Regents will appoint two nonvoting members.

Rep. Kenny Wilk, R-Lansing, one of the authors of the bill said he hoped the board could be appointed by Aug. 1. Given the current competitive environment in the bioscience field, perhaps the state should strive to complete those appointments even sooner and let this group begin its work.

Ask about any state university representative, and they will say that passage of the Economic Growth Act was one of this Legislature’s most significant contributions to the higher education system. It focuses not only on supporting research that attracts federal grant money but in turning that research into commercial enterprises that will feed the state economy.

Although the bill is designed to encourage a broad range of bioscience efforts from medical to agricultural, Jim Roberts, Kansas University’s interim vice provost for research, makes the valid point that the state’s bioscience and research efforts will be most successful if they are focused in a few key areas. The $500 million expected to be available may seem like a lot of money, but stretching if over too many different areas will limit its impact.

Roberts also said he hoped the allocation of funds would not be seen as a competition between KU and Kansas State University. The two universities have different areas of expertise and the bill is structured to support the research strengths of both as well as the research specialties of other state universities.

The Economic Growth Act garnered almost unanimous enthusiastic support in the Kansas Legislature. The only issue that raised major concerns was a provision concerning the use of fetal tissue in research. Although the governor has expressed concern that compromise language on that issue may be objectionable to some researchers, legislators who supported the bill are satisfied it won’t significantly limit the state’s ability to attract top-notch scientists to Kansas.

So the stage is set for what could be a dramatic chapter in the state’s economic life. As it was introduced and considered in the Legislature, the Economic Growth Act often was referred to as “bold” and “visionary.” Now, the state must carry that same bold visionary approach into implementing the law and establishing the state’s role in the bioscience field.