I created a new default option for uncategorized research projects [1]:

{{WMF-support|xx}}

All pages created using the research project template will be added to the category associated with this template [2] until an RCom member reviews the project and assigns to the relevant queue, e.g.

{{WMF-support|sr|pending}}

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:WMF-support [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Uncategorized_support_requests

Dario