---
title: "Bi-level optimization research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “bi-level optimization” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (661), AI (195) and economics (32)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/bi-level-optimization
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/bi-level-optimization.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “bi-level optimization” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (661), AI (195) and economics (32). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “bi-level optimization”

Research on “bi-level optimization” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “bi-level optimization” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (661), AI (195) and economics (32).
- 122 of them were published in 2025, against 62 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Hong Kong Polytechnic University (21), Southeast University (16) and Nanyang Technological University (15).
- The journals publishing most of them were Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review (41), Expert Systems with Applications (35) and European Journal of Operational Research (34).
- The most-cited of them is “A Review on Bilevel Optimization: From Classical to Evolutionary Approaches and Applications” (IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 2017), with 913 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 52 | 49 | 52 | 56 | 70 | 52 | 75 | 89 | 83 | 83 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 10 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 22 | 18 | 25 | 30 | 32 | 35 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 62 | 60 | 60 | 69 | 97 | 73 | 107 | 124 | 122 | 123 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-e-logistics-and-transportation-review.md) | 41 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 35 |
| 3 | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 34 |
| 4 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 31 |
| 5 | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 28 |
| 6 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 26 |
| 7 | [Computers & Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-operations-research.md) | 22 |
| 8 | [Transportation Research Part B Methodological](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-b-methodological.md) | 17 |
| 9 | [Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-optimization-theory-and-applications.md) | 16 |
| 10 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 11 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 21 |
| 2 | [Southeast University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southeast-university.md) | 16 |
| 3 | [Nanyang Technological University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanyang-technological-university.md) | 15 |
| 4 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 14 |
| 5 | [National University of Singapore](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-singapore.md) | 14 |
| 6 | [Tongji University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tongji-university.md) | 14 |
| 7 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 11 |
| 8 | [Dalian University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dalian-university-of-technology.md) | 11 |
| 9 | Tecnológico de Monterrey | 11 |
| 10 | [Beijing Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-jiaotong-university.md) | 10 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 217 |
| 2 | United States | 88 |
| 3 | Hong Kong | 40 |
| 4 | France | 37 |
| 5 | Germany | 36 |
| 6 | Singapore | 29 |
| 7 | United Kingdom | 27 |
| 8 | Canada | 24 |
| 9 | Iran | 24 |
| 10 | Australia | 20 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Stackelberg game](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/stackelberg-game.md) | 28 |
| 2 | [multi-objective optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/multi-objective-optimization.md) | 20 |
| 3 | [genetic algorithm](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/genetic-algorithm.md) | 17 |
| 4 | facility location | 16 |
| 5 | [mixed-integer linear programming](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mixed-integer-linear-programming.md) | 14 |
| 6 | mixed-integer nonlinear programming | 14 |
| 7 | [robust optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/robust-optimization.md) | 14 |
| 8 | [meta-learning](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/meta-learning.md) | 13 |
| 9 | Benders decomposition | 11 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 913 | 8.1 | [A Review on Bilevel Optimization: From Classical to Evolutionary Approaches and Applications](https://doi.org/10.1109/tevc.2017.2712906) | [IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-evolutionary-computation.md) | 2017-06-07 | Ankur Sinha, Pekka Malo, Kalyanmoy Deb |
| 2 | 336 | 3.2 | [An optimal charging station location model with the consideration of electric vehicle’s driving range](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2017.11.026) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2017-12-22 | Jia He, Hai Yang, Tie‐Qiao Tang et al. |
| 3 | 221 | 2.3 | [An integrated scheduling method for AGV routing in automated container terminals](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2018.10.007) | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 2018-10-05 | Yongsheng Yang, Meisu Zhong, Yasser Dessouky et al. |
| 4 | 192 | 2.3 | [Six-DOF Spacecraft Optimal Trajectory Planning and Real-Time Attitude Control: A Deep Neural Network-Based Approach](https://doi.org/10.1109/tnnls.2019.2955400) | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 2019-12-23 | Runqi Chai, Antonios Tsourdos, Al Savvaris et al. |
| 5 | 191 | 2.5 | [Consensus mechanism with maximum-return modifications and minimum-cost feedback: A perspective of game theory](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.04.014) | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 2020-05-16 | Bowen Zhang, Yucheng Dong, Hengjie Zhang et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “bi-level optimization”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/bi-level-optimization

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-bi-level-optimization,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “bi-level optimization”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/bi-level-optimization}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  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/).