I think I confused Colress' BW2 story, with his storyline in the Pokemon anime (which for some reason was significantly changed from the games).
Colress in the anime was a veterinarian/mad scientist that ran somewhat unethical (although occasionally well meaning) experiments on Pokemon, & Team Plasma
grunts were his students/fellow researchers. Colress worked on devices that increased a Pokemon's power/harnessed a Pokemon's power for clean energy, as well as devices that communicated with Pokemon/controlled dangerous Pokemon (implied to be meant for controling legendaries). There was even an episode where Colress kidnapped Meowth and did (offscreen, implied to be brutal) experiments on his brain, in order to find out how Meowth learned to speak. The anime Colress looked down on Pokemon battles/trainers/the Pokemon League for being cruel (which is ironic, considering he's one of the few villains depicted in the series who rather openly tried to murder Ash, travel companions, & Team Rocket).