[tor-relays-universities] Research topic / justification

I'm pursuing the idea of getting a tor exit node set up at my university, though in exploring it further it definitely seems the way to do it is to link it to some relevant research. Wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to go about deciding on a topic that requires relatively little overhead but is considered valuable enough to justify setting up an exit node, and one that's not running at a trivial level of, say, 512kbps.

Also any ideas on how to add a bit more permanence to this? I'm around for the next several months, but gone after that, and would like to be able to pass it on to someone else to maintain if I'm to go through the effort to set it up.

Cheers, Alex