If I'm not mistaken, research points of the same variety can be traded and they go immediately into researching a random tech in that tree. The benefits of trading civ. research points with the AI for civ. research points is that the points go towards researching a tech in the civ tree. Otherwise, you cannot use your own civ. research points to gain tech research.

That seems awful abusable to me....But maybe I don't understand the system. 

Does trading research points affect my currently progressing research? If not, I should be trading same for same every turn, with every civ...I suppose it helps them too, but that's a way to severely accelerate the pace of research if it doesn't affect my current research...

Here is a scenario that will hopefully make things clearer:

I am the Trog faction. Me stomp. Me like warfare techs. Me have 300 warfare research points. Horse riding tech still at 0 /100 research points (horse good for eat, not ride). 

Puny weaklings say, "give 100 warfare points for 100 warfare points." Me kill their messenger, send back head. Attached to messenger severed head reads note: "ok, you get points." Me get 100 warfare points. They go into horse riding [its a random tech at the lowest tier of the tree that is not yet researched]. Now me ride horse instead of eat. Me sad...

[So, I still have 200 warfare points that I cannot use unless I trade them to another faction for additional research points.]