(Note that I'm still playing 1.05, I don't know if this has changed with 1.1b)
When the player moves the cursor above the Research button at the top of the screen, a popup appears in the lower right corner to show the researches' progress.
With the Diplomacy button, the popup explains the purpose of the Diplomacy screen.
How about changing this to show how much time is left to complete each missions that I received?
I find it annoying to have to open the Diplomacy screen (and block the entire main interface) just to know the time remaining.