Is there any way to only do research after getting a Ph.D.? I'm currently a Master's student in my final year and I want to start a Ph.D. next year. I really like doing research (one of my papers got published in a fairly reputable journal), but I more or less dislike the teaching aspect that comes with the Ph.D. title. Is there any alternative way to do research, outside of industry, and not be obligated to teach?
Yes. There are national laboratories like the US DOE labs (Sandia, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, etc), non-profit independent labs, industrial labs, and even university labs like the one I work at. You will find that many of these kinds of labs have some sort of service mission instead of teaching, but others are purely research focused. For example, researchers in my group also support users of our supercomputers when they run into problems. There are lots of these non-academic research opportunities out there in the STEM fields. I think there are probably many less in non-technical areas.