What are the most common topics in recent higher education and research?

In the last 30 days, the most frequent OpenAlex keywords in papers from the tracked higher education and research journals were “generative AI” (7), “large language models” (5), “South Korea” (4), “bibliometric analysis” (4) and “bibliometric indicators” (4).

Which universities and institutions publish the most higher education and research?

In the last 30 days, the institutions with the most papers in the tracked higher education and research journals were Peking University (3), Zhejiang Normal University (2), Seoul National University (2), South China Normal University (2) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (2).

Which countries publish the most higher education and research?

Counting papers with at least one author at an institution in the country, the leaders over the last 30 days were China (36), United States (17), Canada (9), South Korea (5) and Germany (4).

Which equations and models do recent higher education and research papers use most?

Counting papers that mention them by name in the title, abstract, keywords or full text, the most frequent in the tracked higher education and research journals over the last 30 days were Mediation model (indirect effect) (6), Convolutional neural network (CNN) (3), Graph neural network (graph convolution) (3), Long short-term memory (LSTM) (3) and Principal component analysis (PCA) (3).

What data do recent higher education and research papers use?

Counting papers that mention a dataset by name, the kinds of data used most over the last 30 days were Optimization benchmark instances (11), Patents and innovation data (3), Social media data (3), Remote sensing benchmarks (2) and Bond, loan and credit data (1); the most-mentioned datasets were OR-Library (11), China patent office (CNIPA / SIPO) (2), Salinas (2), USPTO / PatentsView (2) and European Patent Office / WIPO (1).

Which higher education and research topics are rising?

Compared with the ranking on 2026-10-23, the keywords that climbed the most were “generative AI” (new, now #1), “large language models” (new, now #2), “South Korea” (new, now #3), “bibliometric analysis” (new, now #3) and “bibliometric indicators” (new, now #3).

How current is this data?

It is rebuilt from OpenAlex 4 times a day (00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00, UTC+09:00); the last update was 2026-10-30 12:46 UTC+09:00. OpenAlex usually indexes new papers within a few days of publication.

Higher Education and Research rankings

Papers in the 11 tracked higher education and research journals, window 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days). Keywords, institutions, web domains and countries are ranked by paper count. Also as Markdown.

Latest monthly report: September 2026 · all 36 months

97Papers (30 days)

17Papers (last 7 days)

11Journals

178Institutions

40Countries

168Web domains

Key findings#

In the last 30 days (2026-10-01 to 2026-10-30), 97 papers were published in the 11 tracked higher education and research journals (as indexed by OpenAlex).
The most frequent keywords were “generative AI” (7), “large language models” (5) and “South Korea” (4).
The institutions with the most papers were Peking University (3), Zhejiang Normal University (2) and Seoul National University (2).
China was involved in 37% of the papers (36), followed by United States (17) and Canada (9).
Among institution web domains, .edu.cn appeared on 34% of the papers.
The most-mentioned equations and models were Mediation model (indirect effect) (6), Convolutional neural network (CNN) (3) and Graph neural network (graph convolution) (3).
The most-mentioned kinds of data were Optimization benchmark instances (11), Patents and innovation data (3) and Social media data (3); the most-mentioned datasets were OR-Library (11), China patent office (CNIPA / SIPO) (2) and Salinas (2).
Rising since 2026-10-23: “generative AI” (new, now #1), “large language models” (new, now #2) and “South Korea” (new, now #3).

Papers per day#

2026-10-012026-10-30

Show the numbers

Papers per publication date
Date	Papers
2026-10-01	10
2026-10-02	2
2026-10-03	3
2026-10-04	0
2026-10-05	4
2026-10-06	2
2026-10-07	3
2026-10-08	12
2026-10-09	2
2026-10-10	2
2026-10-11	1
2026-10-12	6
2026-10-13	1
2026-10-14	13
2026-10-15	4
2026-10-16	2
2026-10-17	0
2026-10-18	0
2026-10-19	2
2026-10-20	1
2026-10-21	6
2026-10-22	2
2026-10-23	2
2026-10-24	7
2026-10-25	0
2026-10-26	4
2026-10-27	6
2026-10-28	0
2026-10-29	0
2026-10-30	0

Growing lately# Trends →

Papers in Jul 2026–Sep 2026 beyond what the keyword's share in Oct 2023–Jun 2026 predicts
Keyword	Papers Jul 2026–Sep 2026	vs. earlier share
large language models	40	+24
research evaluation	27	+15
university governance	11	+8
Matthew effect	8	+6
internationalization of higher education	10	+6

Most-cited papers of the past three years# All →

Most-cited papers published since 2023-10-30 (citations counted by OpenAlex)
#	Citations	Per month	Title	Journal	Published	Authors
1	1,109	34.5	Embracing the future of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom: the relevance of AI literacy, prompt engineering, and critical thinking in modern education	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	2024-02-25	Yoshija Walter
2	1,034	28.7	Role of AI chatbots in education: systematic literature review	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	2023-10-30	Lasha Labadze, Maya Grigolia, Lela Machaidze
3	841	25.2	A meta systematic review of artificial intelligence in higher education: a call for increased ethics, collaboration, and rigour	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	2024-01-18	Melissa Bond, Hassan Khosravi, Maarten F. de Laat et al.
4	551	17.7	Generative AI and the future of higher education: a threat to academic integrity or reformation? Evidence from multicultural perspectives	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	2024-03-24	Abdullahi Yusuf, Nasrin Pervin, ‪Marcos Román-González‬
5	525	16.2	Is it harmful or helpful? Examining the causes and consequences of generative AI usage among university students	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	2024-02-15	Muhammad Abbas, Farooq Ahmed Jam, Tariq Iqbal Khan

Rising keywords#

Keywords that climbed the most since 2026-10-23
#	Keyword	Papers	vs 2026-10-23
1	generative AI	7	new
2	large language models	5	new
3	South Korea	4	new
3	bibliometric analysis	4	new
3	bibliometric indicators	4	new
3	student engagement	4	new
7	China	3	new
7	academic careers	3	new
7	academic integrity	3	new
7	artificial intelligence in education	3	new

Top research keywords#

Top 20 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Keyword	Papers	Last 7 days
1	generative AI	7	1
2	large language models	5	1
3	South Korea	4	1
3	bibliometric analysis	4	1
3	bibliometric indicators	4	0
3	student engagement	4	0
7	China	3	0
7	academic careers	3	0
7	academic integrity	3	0
7	artificial intelligence in education	3	0
7	citation analysis	3	1
7	curriculum development	3	0
7	higher education	3	1
7	higher education governance	3	1
7	international students	3	0
7	internationalization of higher education	3	0
7	research evaluation	3	0
7	research funding	3	1
7	research productivity	3	1
7	student self-regulation	3	0

Top universities and research institutions#

Top 20 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Institution	Papers	Last 7 days
1	Peking University	3	0
2	Zhejiang Normal University	2	1
2	Seoul National University	2	1
2	South China Normal University	2	0
2	Chinese Academy of Sciences	2	1
2	Fudan University	2	0
2	Guangzhou University	2	1
2	Education University of Hong Kong	2	0
2	Mercatorum University	2	0
2	National Science Library	2	1
2	Shandong Women’s University	2	1
2	University of Chinese Academy of Sciences	2	1
2	Macao Polytechnic University	2	1
2	University of Tennessee at Knoxville	2	1
2	Xi'an Jiaotong University	2	1
2	Texas A&M University	2	1
17	State University of Malang	1	0
17	University of Hohenheim	1	0
17	University of Vermont	1	0
17	Hiroshima University	1	0

Top institution web domains#

Top 20 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Web domain	Papers	Last 7 days
1	pku.edu.cn	3	0
2	cas.cn	2	1
2	eduhk.hk	2	0
2	fudan.edu.cn	2	0
2	gzhu.edu.cn	2	1
2	mpu.edu.mo	2	1
2	re.kr	2	0
2	scnu.edu.cn	2	0
2	sdwu.edu.cn	2	1
2	snu.ac.kr	2	1
2	tamu.edu	2	1
2	ucas.ac.cn	2	1
2	unimercatorum.it	2	0
2	utk.edu	2	1
2	xjtu.edu.cn	2	1
2	zjnu.edu.cn	2	1
17	adelaide.edu.au	1	0
17	anvur.it	1	0
17	asu.edu	1	1
17	athabascau.ca	1	0

Top countries#

Top 20 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Country	Papers	Last 7 days
1	China (CN)	36	9
2	United States (US)	17	4
3	Canada (CA)	9	1
4	South Korea (KR)	5	1
5	Germany (DE)	4	0
5	United Kingdom (GB)	4	2
5	Italy (IT)	4	1
8	Spain (ES)	3	1
8	Hong Kong (HK)	3	0
8	Japan (JP)	3	0
11	Australia (AU)	2	0
11	Israel (IL)	2	0
11	Macao (MO)	2	1
11	Turkey (TR)	2	1
15	United Arab Emirates (AE)	1	0
15	Armenia (AM)	1	0
15	Belgium (BE)	1	1
15	Chile (CL)	1	0
15	Cameroon (CM)	1	0
15	Colombia (CO)	1	0

Research fields#

Top 10 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Field	Papers	Last 7 days
1	Social Sciences	36	9
2	Decision Sciences	26	3
3	Computer Science	19	3
4	Psychology	5	1
5	Business, Management and Accounting	4	1
6	Arts and Humanities	2	0
6	Health Professions	2	0
8	Economics, Econometrics and Finance	1	0
8	Engineering	1	0
8	Neuroscience	1	0

Papers per journal#

Top 11 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Journal	Papers	Last 7 days
1	Scientometrics	32	7
2	Higher Education	21	3
3	Higher Education Policy	10	1
4	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	9	2
5	Innovative Higher Education	7	3
6	Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence	5	0
6	The Internet and Higher Education	5	0
8	Journal of Informetrics	4	1
9	Journal of Computing in Higher Education	2	0
10	Minerva	1	0
10	Research in Higher Education	1	0

Most-used equations and models#

Top 10 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Equation or model	Formula	Papers
1	Mediation model (indirect effect)	$M = \alpha_0 + a X + e_1,\quad Y = \beta_0 + c' X + b M + e_2,\quad \text{indirect effect} = a\,b$	6
2	Convolutional neural network (CNN)	$(I * K)(i, j) = \sum_{m}\sum_{n} I(i + m,\, j + n)\, K(m, n)$	3
2	Graph neural network (graph convolution)	$H^{(l+1)} = \sigma\big(\tilde D^{-1/2} \tilde A\, \tilde D^{-1/2} H^{(l)} W^{(l)}\big)$	3
2	Long short-term memory (LSTM)	$c_t = f_t \odot c_{t-1} + i_t \odot \tilde c_t,\quad h_t = o_t \odot \tanh(c_t)$	3
2	Principal component analysis (PCA)	$\max_{\lVert w \rVert = 1}\ w^\top \Sigma\, w$	3
2	Scaled dot-product attention (Transformer)	$\mathrm{Attention}(Q, K, V) = \mathrm{softmax}\Big(\frac{Q K^\top}{\sqrt{d_k}}\Big) V$	3
2	Support vector machine (SVM)	$\min_{w, b, \xi}\ \tfrac{1}{2}\lVert w \rVert^2 + C \sum_i \xi_i\ \ \text{s.t.}\ \ y_i (w^\top x_i + b) \ge 1 - \xi_i,\ \xi_i \ge 0$	3
8	Difference-in-differences	$Y_{it} = \alpha_i + \lambda_t + \delta\,(\mathit{Treat}_i \times \mathit{Post}_t) + \varepsilon_{it}$	2
8	Generative adversarial network (GAN)	$\min_G \max_D\ E_x\big[\log D(x)\big] + E_z\big[\log\big(1 - D(G(z))\big)\big]$	2
8	Propensity score matching	$e(x) = \Pr(D = 1 \mid X = x)$	2

Most-used data#

Top 10 · 2026-10-01 – 2026-10-30 (30 days)
#	Data category	Most-mentioned datasets	Papers
1	Optimization benchmark instances	OR-Library (11)	11
2	Patents and innovation data	USPTO / PatentsView (2), China patent office (CNIPA / SIPO) (2), European Patent Office / WIPO (1)	3
2	Social media data	Twitter / X (1), Facebook (1), YouTube / TikTok (1)	3
4	Remote sensing benchmarks	Salinas (2)	2
5	Bond, loan and credit data	TRACE (1)	1
5	Cross-country social and attitude surveys	Gallup World Poll (1)	1
5	Education data	IPEDS (1)	1
5	Image classification benchmarks	ImageNet (1)	1
5	International trade and input-output data	WITS / TRAINS tariff data (1)	1
5	Mutual fund and hedge fund data	Lipper / TASS (1)	1

Latest higher education and research papers#

Latest higher education and research papers
Date	Title	Journal	Authors	Affiliations
2026-10-27	Anchoring the unanchorable: the survival turn of the developmental state in an era of demographic contraction and the instrumentalization of South Korea’s Regional Universities	Higher Education	Li Mingfeng	Seoul National University; Shandong Women’s University
2026-10-27	Identifying Perceived Factors That Influence Sense of Teaching Agency (SoTA) Among Higher Education Faculty	Innovative Higher Education	Derek Thurber, Quincy Conley	Arizona State University; A.T. Still University
2026-10-27	GenAI-enabled educational game development: the effects of a scripted mystery role-playing game on students’ learning experience and learning outcomes in legal education	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	Ziyi Xie, Zhao Shufang, Fanxiang Hong et al.	Macao Polytechnic University; Zhejiang Normal University; Xingzhi College Zhejiang Normal University
2026-10-27	Is reviewer recognition associated with labor input? A large-scale analysis of PLoS One peer review reports and CRediT	Scientometrics	Huanan Wei, Jielan Ding, Xiwen Liu et al.
2026-10-27	The world in the stacks: a quantitative study of geographic and language representation in the Library of Congress book collection	Journal of Informetrics	Hongyu Zhou, Kai Li, Raf Guns et al.	Renmin University of China; University of Tennessee at Knoxville; University of Antwerp
2026-10-27	Summer Melt and the Postsecondary Pathway	Innovative Higher Education	Brian Holzman, Corbin Franklin	Texas A&M University
2026-10-26	Meritocracy as Bureaucratic Conversion: Hukou, Provincial Quotas, and Elite University Access Through China’s Gaokao	Higher Education Policy	Zhen Wei, Shiming Zhang, Ziyu Lin	King's College London; Hainan University; Technological University Dublin; …
2026-10-26	Regional disparities in the research productivity of returned scholars in Chinese universities	Scientometrics	Yueyan Dong, Nannan Yu, Jinxing Yue	Xi'an Jiaotong University; Harbin Institute of Technology
2026-10-26	Who benefits from LLMs? Prompt engineering competence and equity in higher education	International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education	Zhengdao Li, Yezi Liu, Jianan Jiang et al.	Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; Guangzhou University; Xidian University
2026-10-26	Paying with time: English, time inheritance, and the case for temporal linguistic justice in higher education	Higher Education	Cora Lingling Xu	Durham University
2026-10-24	Intelligent patent infringement analysis methods based on patent-function-principle-structure network	Scientometrics	Zeyuan Ren, Peng Zhang, Hongliang Bi et al.	Hebei University of Technology
2026-10-24	CiteSeq2vec: a framework for citation recommendation via semantic embedding of full-text citation sequences	Scientometrics	Jinzhu Zhang, Haoyu Li, Dongsheng Liu	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Nanjing University of Science and Technology
2026-10-24	The open catalogue of global scientific academies: organizational identity, web presence, and scholarly communication infrastructure	Scientometrics	Xiaoli Chen, Xuezhao Wang	Chinese Academy of Sciences; National Science Library; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
2026-10-24	Beyond “one size fits all”: graduate satisfaction across academic fields	Higher Education	Josep Llach, Martí Casadesús Fa	Universitat de Girona; UPF Barcelona School of Management
2026-10-24	Why retracted papers continue to be cited: direct survey evidence complements citation-pattern analysis	Scientometrics	Alessandro DE CASSAI, Tommaso Pettenuzzo, Nicolò Sella et al.	University of Padua; Azienda Ospedale - Università Padova; Ondokuz Mayıs University

Questions this page answers#

What are the most common topics in recent higher education and research?: In the last 30 days, the most frequent OpenAlex keywords in papers from the tracked higher education and research journals were “generative AI” (7), “large language models” (5), “South Korea” (4), “bibliometric analysis” (4) and “bibliometric indicators” (4).
Which universities and institutions publish the most higher education and research?: In the last 30 days, the institutions with the most papers in the tracked higher education and research journals were Peking University (3), Zhejiang Normal University (2), Seoul National University (2), South China Normal University (2) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (2).
Which countries publish the most higher education and research?: Counting papers with at least one author at an institution in the country, the leaders over the last 30 days were China (36), United States (17), Canada (9), South Korea (5) and Germany (4).
Which equations and models do recent higher education and research papers use most?: Counting papers that mention them by name in the title, abstract, keywords or full text, the most frequent in the tracked higher education and research journals over the last 30 days were Mediation model (indirect effect) (6), Convolutional neural network (CNN) (3), Graph neural network (graph convolution) (3), Long short-term memory (LSTM) (3) and Principal component analysis (PCA) (3).
What data do recent higher education and research papers use?: Counting papers that mention a dataset by name, the kinds of data used most over the last 30 days were Optimization benchmark instances (11), Patents and innovation data (3), Social media data (3), Remote sensing benchmarks (2) and Bond, loan and credit data (1); the most-mentioned datasets were OR-Library (11), China patent office (CNIPA / SIPO) (2), Salinas (2), USPTO / PatentsView (2) and European Patent Office / WIPO (1).
Which higher education and research topics are rising?: Compared with the ranking on 2026-10-23, the keywords that climbed the most were “generative AI” (new, now #1), “large language models” (new, now #2), “South Korea” (new, now #3), “bibliometric analysis” (new, now #3) and “bibliometric indicators” (new, now #3).
How current is this data?: It is rebuilt from OpenAlex 4 times a day (00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00, UTC+09:00); the last update was 2026-10-30 12:46 UTC+09:00. OpenAlex usually indexes new papers within a few days of publication.

Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Higher Education and Research rankings. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 30, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research

@misc{scholar4ai-categories-higher-education-and-research,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Higher Education and Research rankings},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research}},
  urldate = {2026-10-30},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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