Is development research?
The goal of research is to advance the state of human knowledge.  The goal of development is to create a new capability that did not previously exist.

Sometimes, these goals are separate.  For example, one might acquire knowledge by studying outcomes from a medical intervention without needing to develop anything new.  Likewise, one may do development that provides new capabilities but doesn't particularly add to the state of human knowledge (e.g., making phone app versions of existing software or web sites).

Often, however, as in the case of your own research, the goals are inextricably intertwined: the capability comes from the synthesis of recent developments in knowledge, and will in turn produce new knowledge ("Yes, this is better positioned for adoption").  If you're doing it right, there will tend to be a lot of feedback between the two sides in the process, and thus the idea of does research come "before" or "after" development doesn't make much sense.

Rather, when you are putting together research proposals, I would suggest that you focus on the following questions:


What will be possible when you have finished the project, which is not possible now?
How will you be able to measure that you have succeeded?


The first is the development aspect, the second the research aspect (which is inextricably tied to the development).