It's generally singular, when treated as a compound subject (R&I) like I think you're talking about. But bear in mind, it can be plural if you're speaking as though they're separate items on a list, for example you could say Research and (separately) Innovation are (both) more interesting than Maths and Physics, according to students of X University. But this is unlikely to be applicable to your scenario, so I'd recommend going with singular.

Singular