Hello? There is research that goes on outside the hard sciences.
Economists do research- and lots of it. No special equipment required. Classics professors do research- and lots of it- and now that archives have been digitized all over the world, less travel is involved than “back in the day”. Political Scientists dominate the research field at some institutions- think back to every election poll and the name of the college which sponsors the research attached to the study. Linguistics, Art History… you name it.
Some posters here seem to be missing that point. It’s not just nanotechnology and nuclear reactors, and even tiny research budgets can use lots of students and yield huge results.