@bastecklein hopefully this can help you find why this happens so people don't have to take so many steps just to leave the game, because no auto save nor manual save from in-game works for saving Research.
I went onto here to find out what was causing the issue, someone suggested that you back out of your Colony then back out of your Region and so far, it seems to have saved the research I have done. I am still working on resaving up research so I can further test out the theory, but so far I do have some saved.
How to get them to save:
1. Unlock Research
2. Menu- Return to Region
3. Menu- Return to Title
4. Upon re-entering into the game my research is now where I left it. If I do not do all 3 steps, it will now send me back to this current state of research.
So it has become my new "Minimum". I will do more science to find out if my next one will become my new standard. The dark mark is me pulling down to show it's now staying with that as my current research. I need to save more points so I can do another test. It cost a lot to do that all at once! 😄
Opps. Forgotten this:
Android Moto E5 Play
My colony 0.76.0