Never done it myself but it just occurred to me that you can get one or more turns of delay before committing at the start of each

phase so long as you have no techs available that are cheaper than 1 turn to research, by turning up the slider but not putting the beakers into any specific tech.
For anyone who hasn't done that accidentally before, deselect the tech at the top of the screen and don't select another one, and you don't actually have to be researching anything specific when you click "end turn" - the beakers are put on hold towards any tech next turn. Next turn it prompts again and you can select any tech and deselect it immediately - then you'll have 2 turns of beakers banked towards any tech.
The only thing that sucks is the game automatically insta-researches the cheapest tech for you as soon as you have enough beakers for it, which means you have to make a decision when you see there is any tech with just 1 turn left. But if you had say 5 techs available all requiring 10 turns, and nothing cheaper, you could run full

uncommitted for 9 turns and then select at the last minute.
Do any of the elite players actually take the micro that far I wonder?!