UCI-Hitachi Plan for Joint Research Facility Approved by Regents Panel

A plan by UC Irvine and Hitachi Chemical Co. to build a joint research facility on the Irvine campus was approved Thursday by a committee of the University of California Board of Regents.

UCI Vice Chancellor John Miltner said the committee approval--expected to be followed today by swift approval of the full Board of Regents--gives UCI authority to lease land adjacent to its medical school complex to Hitachi Chemical.

On that acreage, Miltner said, Hitachi is expected to begin constructing a 40,000-square-foot research and development building next fall, with completion slated for late 1989.

The lease agreement calls for Hitachi Chemical to give UCI, in lieu of rent, 13,000 square feet of laboratory space in the building for use by medical school faculty and students.

The remainder of the building will be used by Hitachi--a manufacturer of electronic materials, synthetic resins, ceramics, pharmaceuticals and other chemical products--for its own biomedical research.

Miltner said the land-lease arrangement is “exciting” because it provides “one of the only alternatives” that UCI has for obtaining much-needed medical research laboratories. In addition, he said, UCI and Hitachi hope to collaborate on research projects.

Masayuki Kohama, a spokesman for Hitachi Ltd., the giant Tokyo-based parent of Hitachi Chemical Co., said that in recent years Hitachi has been trying to foster greater exchange of information between it own scientists and scientists working at American universities. The proposed UCI facility reflects that policy of the parent company.

Times staff writer Larry Gordon contributed to this report