Thanks for your interest!
I've made the game initially for the android and was intending to play it in relatively short bursts, so for me research was a thing to happen passively between play sessions. It shouldn't go much above 1-2 hours per research.
To speed it up you could save your army configuration, throw all of them into research to quickly finish all of it, then reload army comp and do a quick 10 minute meditate to retrain them, this would probably be the most optimal way to do it.
Alternatively you could prestige now and throw everything into research speed. This should net you about 2.5x permanent research speed (if you are in the middle of age 2).