Does the number show progress or the % of remaining unresearched items? Because that screenshot showing 26% looks like it comes from a game with a bunch of research already done (only one topic from the pilot, which is admittedly possible to achieve without researching anything else, maybe, but unlikely)
Also, I don't know how hard it would be, but I would find a feature that shows currently unresearched projects very convenient. Not projects which have currently undiscovered topics in their getOneFree lists, but the actual projects.
Another thing is that as far as I know, you can open the tech tree viewer two ways:
1 - Middle click on a research topic in the "select research topic" list
2 - Middle click on a manufacturing job
Which means that if you are currently stuck with nothing to research, a point where the tech tree viewer is most important, it becomes very unintuitive to reach. Indeed, it took me a while before realizing it could be reached from manufacture, during which I was getting mad at the game for not only not allowing me to progress, but also not having any way but ruleset trawling to get a clue on what to do next. Being able to launch the tech tree viewer from the "select research topic" either through a button or by clicking the empty space would be good.