Sure, Scala is used for research, it came from research, but I don't think it's accurate anymore to say it's a research language. Some of our clients are doing some really cutting edge stuff, but I wouldn't call them research institutes. I'm of course biased as well, but I'd say Scala's been maturing nicely with 2.10.x and (soon!) 2.11.0.
For example, which of the official new features in Scala 2.11.0 is research-y, would you say? We worked on faster incremental compilation, started modularizing the standard library, improved our infrastructure for better integration builds with SBT & Scala IDE. We did add experimental support for SAM types -- is it "research" to prepare for Java 8 interop? The main experimental features are of course reflection and macros, developed at EPFL. I'd say we've been pretty clear about labeling these experimental bits "experimental".
For example, which of the official new features in Scala 2.11.0 is research-y, would you say? We worked on faster incremental compilation, started modularizing the standard library, improved our infrastructure for better integration builds with SBT & Scala IDE. We did add experimental support for SAM types -- is it "research" to prepare for Java 8 interop? The main experimental features are of course reflection and macros, developed at EPFL. I'd say we've been pretty clear about labeling these experimental bits "experimental".