Often want to look at multiple of search results but each time I return to search it is cleared. Would either like search results as a panel on side or search results retained during session and I have to clear to change query.
I agree! You may know this, but fwiw — in the new search pop-up (visible on notebook pages in “Next”), you can now Cmd-Click (Ctrl-Click on Windows) to open results in new tabs without dismissing the results. This has helped me a lot, compared to Classic. If I’m gonna be referring to a ton of results I click “View all 972 results →”, though it then has to load all over again.
But your point stands. I’d love a persistent sidebar; we’ve sketched that before. Also just want search to be faster, which affects all other search ux, ha… 
(maybe my screenshot is too obvious but some people coming across this may not know what i mean by “the new search pop-up in Next” as opposed to the other one on our homepage etc…)
I do right click to open multiple when I know that more are interesting…but I don’t always know that I should go back and look at more of them, and so would like persistent results.