That's a simple idea, but it's not really the best fix for Wizard towers, in my opinion. The problem with making them contribute to research is that Academies contribute to research and als o give cards - and most of the cards they give are useful all game long (except Unit Acquisition and Unit Skill cards, but those appear really rarely from Academies anyway). Besides, Research points are easy enough to acquire as it is.
For the record, my two suggested solutions to this were
A) Turn Wizard Towers into shops for Dragon Skills.
They could remove the "random card every 3 turns" functionality and have the Wizard Towers serve as some kind of shop, with a random selection of 8 Dragon Dragon skills, so you could buy skills you wanted. Maybe the price should be lower, though, since some skills are not worth up to 15 gold a turn. Maybe 2 Gold per Tier level (up to 8 gold per Tier 4 card). This will let players decide whether to spend research points on mastering a skill, or buy it with gold and save their research points for units.
B) Add an additional Function to the Wizard Tower
Keep the existing functionality of the Wizard Tower as is, but add a "Transmute Cards" function to it, that lets you transmute 3-5 cards for a single other random card, which could be anything, even stuff from the Emporium. That would solve the useless card situation, and the useless building situation, and add an element of gambling to the Wizard Tower, which can be addicting. Maybe a fee of 3 gold per transmutation... or maybe a fee is too much if the result is a random card. I'm not sure.
I prefer B, because it would help in other ways. Yes, it would require more work, but it would give Wizard Towers a distinct role that couldn't be replaced by an Academy.
