Tycoon like game, Research mechanic on new scene or just UI overlay?

So I'm working on a tycoon like game were the player manages a hospital and researches diseases.

I'm wondering if its better to move to a new scene when the player needs to do some simple "research" mechanics or just to pause the world scene and create an overlay that will have the mechanics on it. The research mechanic needs to get information that is currently on the world scene and then return information from that.

I ask this as I'm currently trying to move to a new scene and I'm having problems accessing and returning the information.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, thanks.