I was able to get a tier 1 combat research goal and then skip directly to a tier 3 research goal. I was able to achieve this by starting a tier 2 combat research goal, queuing a tier 3 research goal, then abandoning the tier 2 goal.

I can verify that it finished because I have already produced 6 dreadnoughts without the ability to produce battleships and I don't have the other tier 2 goal researched either.