Research are a new element of Pokémon GO. At all times, you can complete a various amount of missions. These missions are based on simply doing activities within the game such as winning Gym Battles, catching specific Pokémon and so forth. These come with various rewards such as Rare Candy, Potions, TMs and more.

Field Research is the more general of the Research tasks. These are obtained by spinning PokéStops. Each PokéStop will give a specific research task to all players each day, but Gyms do not give them. The tasks players receive is the same and the PokéStop changes it up each day. Players can store up to 3 Research tasks at any one time, but can delete any they wish. They can get that task again by spinning the same PokéStop. Each Field Research task has a special reward, decided at random, for completion. These include items such as Rare Candy, Poké Balls, Berries and even Pokémon encounters. These Pokémon are over Level 15 with IVs of 10 or higher in each stat. Each task will have the same rewards for all players.

Field Research can be completed in any number in any way players like, however for the first bit of Research completed each day, players will receive a special stamp. 7 stamps lead to Research Breakthroughs.

There is also some special Event Only Research which will only appear at certain times

When you have collected 7 stamps through Field Research, you get a Research Breakthrough. This is a special box that has a variety of different things in. It has rarer items, stronger Stardust and most notably, the ability to capture even rarer Pokémon including Legendary Pokémon.