Yes, you are on the right track! When designing the game we had Plague Inc in mind and decided to show the situation from the other side.
The research feature is actually still a problem. In the last few hours of the jam we came a little under time pressure and couldn't implement the notification about the costs of Research Points for your research. Right now the research will cost you the displayed amount of money plus ten Research Points. You see your current number of Research Points on the right screen in the lower left corner.