research lab vs workplace

research lab and workplace both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
research lab	Yes	No	No	No
workplace	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, workplace is a hypernym of research lab; that is, workplace is a word with a broader meaning than research lab:

Other hypernyms of research lab include work.

research lab (noun)	workplace (noun)
a workplace for the conduct of scientific research	a place where work is done