(Disclamer: It's been a year since I last played a proper game of star ruler 1, and there have probably been some pretty large mechanics changes since then (most notably pirates I think))
You don't want to focus only on research. You really want to split your focus between colonization/infrastructure (primary), research and pirate defense.
Even if you focus entirely on research, and your opponent has twice as many planets as you, not only will he research just as fast as you, but he will also be able to expand, soon having many more planets still, eventually outpacing you in research as well.
Because of this, the primary focus should be on colonization, and everything else should come after.
Also make sure you understand how all the resources work, and make sure that you are getting resources in the right proportions for the time.
Finally, make sure the cheating AI option is off, otherwise the AI will cheat for resources (but not research).
Cheating AI complaint
I just ran a 2 hour 30 minute 1 system game with 5 AI's ranking form easy to hardest. By the end (and at every point in between), I had the highest research score of anyone by a pretty clear margin, even when I turned all my research facilities into resource buildings to build a size 600 ship (since I set the ship limit at only one to prevent me actually having to defend myself earlier on, and to allow myself to focus on research) over a hour.
Its honestly a crazy complex game, and the number of things you can do better are massive. While I consider myself good (no problem beating multiple allied hardest AI), I know that I can get far better.
E: Make sure that you have a governor on to auto-renovate all your buildings.