[Behold the Void]

You can have one research facility in each city, the best way to research a singular item is to just make a big facility in one place (smaller facilities in other places can help, but until you develop telegram and other communications-based steam technology it's harder for them to communicate and not as efficient). In your case, for barriers you're going to want magitek over steam tech. It'll take a good amount of time, but you'll be developing smaller barrier magitechnology as you build your way up to it.