For those derailing with thoughts about an industrial era+ aoe game I made a pretty high effort concept in the off topic forum you might be interested in!
Feel free to discuss your ideas there as well!!
As regards the discussion here, I think I agree that Universities are probably not as relevant in the time period as other things. My personal thoughts would be towards a “laboratory” (or maybe a “royal society”).
In a game that still has a strong theme of discovery in it, I think it would be really cool if the laboratory could train naturalists, who are like non-hero versions of explorers who can gather treasures and scout and so on. Maybe naturalists can also harvest animals, but instead of food they provide XP.
The laboratory would also allow balloons to be trained and might have special research options depending on the map type? I think the most coolest thing would be if it had some additional imperial age techs that made visual changes to buildings and units. E.g. you could research electricity and buildings would get electric lamps around them. The tech would boost line of sight even more than gas lighting and would make all other research instant.