---
title: "CEC benchmark functions: research papers using this data"
description: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 323 archived papers mentioned CEC benchmark functions in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (17)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cec-benchmark-functions
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cec-benchmark-functions.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 323 archived papers mentioned CEC benchmark functions in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (17). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# CEC benchmark functions

[Browse dataset profiles](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/directory.md)

Standard problem instances for routing, scheduling and integer programming, and test functions for metaheuristics.

- data category: Optimization benchmark instances
- 0 papers in the last 7 days
- Names searched for: CEC benchmark, CEC test suite, CEC 2005, CEC 2013, CEC 2014, CEC 2017, CEC 2019, CEC 2020, CEC 2021, CEC 2022, CEC2005, CEC2013, CEC2014, CEC2017, CEC2019, CEC2020, CEC2021, CEC2022

Most-used data: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/datasets.md · All Optimization benchmark instances datasets: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/optimization-benchmark-instances.md



## Key findings

- From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 323 archived papers mentioned CEC benchmark functions in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (17).
- CEC benchmark functions was mentioned in 1 paper in the last 30 days (2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05), ranking #165 of the 246 datasets mentioned.
- By journal category: AI (1).
- Most of them appeared in Journal Of Big Data (1).
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), CEC benchmark functions was mentioned in 640 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (601), operations research (25) and management (4).
- 102 of them were published in 2025, against 17 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Mansoura University (18), Nankai University (18) and Torrens University Australia (14).
- The journals publishing most of them were Artificial Intelligence Review (62), Expert Systems with Applications (59) and Knowledge-Based Systems (44).
- The most-cited of them is “Archimedes optimization algorithm: a new metaheuristic algorithm for solving optimization problems” (Applied Intelligence, 2020), with 1,138 citations.
- Papers use CEC benchmark functions most often with UCI Machine Learning Repository (15), ImageNet (12) and CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100 (8); it has 16 partners in the code and data network, in the group around ImageNet, CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100, MNIST / Fashion-MNIST.

## Mentions over 36 months

*Papers mentioning it by publication month, Nov 2023 to Oct 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords; the full texts of earlier months are still being searched)*

| Trend | Nov 23–Oct 24 | Nov 24–Oct 25 | Nov 25–Oct 26 | 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
|  | 124 | 112 | 87 | 323 |

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 16 | 28 | 30 | 27 | 55 | 85 | 79 | 120 | 93 | 68 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 4 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 17 | 29 | 31 | 29 | 55 | 90 | 83 | 128 | 102 | 76 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 62 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 59 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 44 |
| 4 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 42 |
| 5 | [Swarm and Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/swarm-and-evolutionary-computation.md) | 41 |
| 6 | [IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-evolutionary-computation.md) | 30 |
| 7 | [Information Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-sciences.md) | 25 |
| 8 | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 25 |
| 9 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 11 |
| 10 | [IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-cybernetics.md) | 7 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Mansoura University | 18 |
| 2 | [Nankai University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nankai-university.md) | 18 |
| 3 | Torrens University Australia | 14 |
| 4 | Minia University | 13 |
| 5 | Middle East University | 12 |
| 6 | Xi'an University of Technology | 12 |
| 7 | Zagazig University | 12 |
| 8 | [Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-information-science-and-technology.md) | 10 |
| 9 | [Southern University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southern-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 10 |
| 10 | [Hanyang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hanyang-university.md) | 9 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 206 |
| 2 | Egypt | 51 |
| 3 | India | 35 |
| 4 | Australia | 30 |
| 5 | United States | 29 |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 28 |
| 7 | Jordan | 27 |
| 8 | Saudi Arabia | 23 |
| 9 | Turkey | 23 |
| 10 | Iran | 20 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [metaheuristic optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-optimization.md) | 138 |
| 2 | [exploration-exploitation balance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/exploration-exploitation-balance.md) | 104 |
| 3 | CEC benchmark functions | 65 |
| 4 | differential evolution | 65 |
| 5 | engineering design optimization | 55 |
| 6 | local optima avoidance | 52 |
| 7 | CEC2017 benchmark functions | 50 |
| 8 | global optimization | 48 |
| 9 | premature convergence | 48 |
| 10 | population diversity | 45 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,138 | 15.5 | [Archimedes optimization algorithm: a new metaheuristic algorithm for solving optimization problems](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-020-01893-z) | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 2020-09-29 | Fatma A. Hashim, Kashif Hussain, Essam Halim Houssein et al. |
| 2 | 1,118 | 19.7 | [Snake Optimizer: A novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2022.108320) | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 2022-02-08 | Fatma A. Hashim, Abdelazim G. Hussien |
| 3 | 1,067 | 15.7 | [Hunger games search: Visions, conception, implementation, deep analysis, perspectives, and towards performance shifts](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.114864) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2021-03-10 | Yutao Yang, Huiling Chen, Ali Asghar Heidari et al. |
| 4 | 1,022 | 21.2 | [Coati Optimization Algorithm: A new bio-inspired metaheuristic algorithm for solving optimization problems](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2022.110011) | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 2022-10-28 | Mohammad Dehghani, Zeinab Montazeri, Eva Trojovská et al. |
| 5 | 697 | 9.0 | [A mayfly optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2020.106559) | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 2020-05-25 | Konstantinos Zervoudakis, Stelios Tsafarakis |

## Used together with

Papers use CEC benchmark functions most often with UCI Machine Learning Repository (15), ImageNet (12) and CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100 (8); it has 16 partners in the code and data network, in the group around ImageNet, CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100, MNIST / Fashion-MNIST.

*What papers use CEC benchmark functions together with (at least 3 papers; lift 1 = chance)*

| Used with | Type | Papers using both | Lift |
|---|---|---:|---:|
| [UCI Machine Learning Repository](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/uci-machine-learning-repository.md) | Dataset | 15 | 1.8 |
| [ImageNet](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/imagenet.md) | Dataset | 12 | 0.4 |
| [CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cifar-10-cifar-100.md) | Dataset | 8 | 0.4 |
| [Kaggle](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/kaggle.md) | Dataset | 6 | 0.8 |
| [Twitter / X](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/twitter-x.md) | Dataset | 6 | 0.1 |
| [NSL-KDD / KDD Cup 99](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/nsl-kdd-kdd-cup-99.md) | Dataset | 5 | 1.6 |
| [Dow Jones Industrial Average](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/dow-jones-industrial-average.md) | Dataset | 4 | 1.0 |
| [International Energy Agency (IEA)](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/international-energy-agency-iea.md) | Dataset | 4 | 0.3 |
| [MODIS](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/modis.md) | Dataset | 4 | 0.7 |
| [Taillard instances](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/taillard-instances.md) | Dataset | 4 | 2.8 |
| [Traffic (PeMS, METR-LA)](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/traffic-pems-metr-la.md) | Dataset | 4 | 1.4 |
| [MNIST / Fashion-MNIST](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/mnist-fashion-mnist.md) | Dataset | 3 | 0.2 |

The whole network: https://scholar4ai.com/code/network.md

## Papers

*Papers mentioning CEC benchmark functions in the last 30 days, newest first.*

| Date | Title | Journal | Authors | Affiliations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-13 | [AIRIME: a scalable adaptive RIME algorithm for feature optimization and data-driven monkeypox disease prediction](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-026-01482-w) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | Mohamed Elhosseny, Mahmoud Abdel-Salam, Doaa Sami Khafaga et al. | Mansoura University; University of Sharjah; Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University; … |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). CEC benchmark functions. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cec-benchmark-functions

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-datasets-cec-benchmark-functions,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {CEC benchmark functions},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cec-benchmark-functions}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).