If I'm in desperate need of tech points quickly, I've found that if you stay on top of your researchers you can get tech points faster. What I mean is that they stand there and research, then do this funny side step and continue researching, then walk a bit before going back to researching. Once they do their two-stepping you'll notice your tech points have gone up. At this point you can pick them up and have them start over rather than letting them continue on their own as you've already gained your points the continued research is for naught. With three to six people researching it gets quite challenging since they tend to overlap one another alot.