---
title: "Machine learning research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “machine learning” appeared in 1,316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (477), operations research (216) and economics (160)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/machine-learning
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/machine-learning.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 “machine learning” appeared in 1,316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (477), operations research (216) and economics (160). (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 “machine learning”

Research on “machine learning” 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 “machine learning” appeared in 1,316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (477), operations research (216) and economics (160).
- 206 of them were published in 2025, against 21 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (9), Lebanese American University (8) and Mansoura University (8).
- The journals publishing most of them were Artificial Intelligence Review (60), Expert Systems with Applications (51) and Neural Computing and Applications (34).
- The most-cited of them is “Machine learning and deep learning” (Electronic Markets, 2021), with 2,962 citations.

## 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) | 12 | 14 | 31 | 43 | 51 | 64 | 58 | 88 | 70 | 46 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 2 | 7 | 8 | 13 | 16 | 30 | 30 | 31 | 47 | 32 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 5 | 13 | 13 | 21 | 25 | 22 | 16 | 29 | 16 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 4 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 20 | 20 | 21 | 17 | 21 | 26 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 1 | 6 | 13 | 10 | 16 | 8 | 26 | 15 | 15 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 3 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 19 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 5 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 4 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| All categories | 21 | 42 | 68 | 112 | 137 | 189 | 172 | 208 | 206 | 161 |

## 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) | 60 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 51 |
| 3 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 34 |
| 4 | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 28 |
| 5 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 26 |
| 6 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 25 |
| 7 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 23 |
| 8 | [Computational Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computational-economics.md) | 16 |
| 9 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Nature Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/nature-machine-intelligence.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 9 |
| 2 | [Lebanese American University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/lebanese-american-university.md) | 8 |
| 3 | Mansoura University | 8 |
| 4 | Florida Atlantic University | 7 |
| 5 | [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/massachusetts-institute-of-technology.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [Purdue University West Lafayette](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/purdue-university-west-lafayette.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Shanghai University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shanghai-university.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [Sungkyunkwan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sungkyunkwan-university.md) | 7 |
| 9 | [Technical University of Munich](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/technical-university-of-munich.md) | 7 |
| 10 | [University of Bologna](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-bologna.md) | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 154 |
| 2 | China | 123 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 91 |
| 4 | Italy | 58 |
| 5 | India | 56 |
| 6 | Germany | 52 |
| 7 | Australia | 43 |
| 8 | France | 42 |
| 9 | Canada | 36 |
| 10 | Turkey | 31 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [deep learning](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/deep-learning.md) | 127 |
| 2 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 117 |
| 3 | [artificial neural networks](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-neural-networks.md) | 38 |
| 4 | [random forest](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/random-forest.md) | 38 |
| 5 | [research trends](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/research-trends.md) | 35 |
| 6 | [big data](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/big-data.md) | 34 |
| 7 | [Internet of Things](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/internet-of-things.md) | 30 |
| 8 | [blockchain](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/blockchain.md) | 27 |
| 9 | natural language processing | 26 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,962 | 44.3 | [Machine learning and deep learning](https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-021-00475-2) | [Electronic Markets](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/electronic-markets.md) | 2021-04-08 | Christian Janiesch, Patrick Zschech, Kai Heinrich |
| 2 | 1,102 | 14.9 | [Artificial intelligence and business models in the sustainable development goals perspective: A systematic literature review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.08.019) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2020-09-11 | Assunta Di Vaio, Rosa Palladino, Rohail Hassan et al. |
| 3 | 1,089 | 15.0 | [Artificial intelligence and innovation management: A review, framework, and research agenda✰](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120392) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2020-10-17 | Naomi Haefner, Joakim Wincent, Vinit Parida et al. |
| 4 | 1,045 | 15.4 | [Common pitfalls and recommendations for using machine learning to detect and prognosticate for COVID-19 using chest radiographs and CT scans](https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00307-0) | [Nature Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/nature-machine-intelligence.md) | 2021-03-15 | Michael Roberts, Derek Driggs, Matthew Thorpe et al. |
| 5 | 952 | 8.3 | [Machine learning models and bankruptcy prediction](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.04.006) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2017-04-10 | Flávio Barboza, Herbert Kimura, Edward I. Altman |

## Cite this page

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

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-machine-learning,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “machine learning”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/machine-learning}},
  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/).