I don't know if it is the best solution to unlock UP articles directly from Research, because these are not always 1-to-1 as far as I remember. And maybe it's more flexible this way if modders want to add new articles in the future. We'll see...
Well you always need to research something to open up an article, even if it's not 1-to-1. My reasoning is that keeping all the "unlocking" in one place helps keep everything consistent and less error-prone.
For example, say we go your way with unlock lists for everything: ufopaedia, items, crafts, weapons, research, manufacture, etc. So when we finish researching an item, we have to explicitly unlock the next research, item, ufopaedia, manufacture, etc. This increases the chances someone will slip up and cause a bug, and you might end up with an unlocked manufacture without the unlocked item, or unlocked research without the unlocked ufopaedia, etc. And even if you fix this bug, any affected savegames will still have the broken unlocks because it's not retroactive (this is similar to the UFO research bugs) since they only check if they themselves have been unlocked.
But if we just tie everything to researches instead, then you'll be sure that if research X is complete, everything associated with it will unlock. There are no inconsistencies. Even if you later fix a research bug, or decide to change what a research unlocks or something, it automatically takes effect because everything just checks if research X is unlocked. This also makes it much easier for modders to keep updating and trying changes without breaking everything.
