Papers on “metaheuristic optimization”
Research on “metaheuristic 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. Also as Markdown.
← Top research keywords · Keyword trends
Key findings#
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “metaheuristic optimization” appeared in 2,528 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (1,557), operations research (898) and economics (26).
- 256 of them were published in 2025, against 186 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Mansoura University (29), Middle East University (22) and Ajman University (21).
- The journals publishing most of them were Expert Systems with Applications (209), Neural Computing and Applications (169) and Knowledge-Based Systems (99).
- The most-cited of them is “Equilibrium optimizer: A novel optimization algorithm” (Knowledge-Based Systems, 2019), with 2,345 citations.
Papers per year#
20172026 (so far)
| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI | 92 | 97 | 97 | 148 | 194 | 255 | 227 | 176 | 158 | 113 |
| Operations Research | 91 | 80 | 100 | 73 | 106 | 87 | 85 | 104 | 90 | 82 |
| Economics | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| Information Systems | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Finance | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Management | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Statistics | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Marketing | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Higher Education and Research | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tourism and Hospitality | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 186 | 181 | 201 | 231 | 311 | 346 | 322 | 294 | 256 | 200 |
Where the papers come from#
| # | Journal | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expert Systems with Applications | 209 |
| 2 | Neural Computing and Applications | 169 |
| 3 | Knowledge-Based Systems | 99 |
| 4 | Computers & Operations Research | 74 |
| 5 | Artificial Intelligence Review | 64 |
| 6 | Computers & Industrial Engineering | 52 |
| 7 | European Journal of Operational Research | 42 |
| 8 | Applied Intelligence | 35 |
| 9 | Annals of Operations Research | 29 |
| 10 | Journal Of Big Data | 28 |
| # | Institution | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mansoura University | 29 |
| 2 | Middle East University | 22 |
| 3 | Ajman University | 21 |
| 4 | Torrens University Australia | 21 |
| 5 | Zagazig University | 21 |
| 6 | Minia University | 20 |
| 7 | Aswan University | 18 |
| 8 | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique | 18 |
| 9 | Wenzhou University | 18 |
| 10 | Huazhong University of Science and Technology | 15 |
| # | Country | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 317 |
| 2 | India | 131 |
| 3 | Egypt | 107 |
| 4 | United States | 86 |
| 5 | Iran | 82 |
| 6 | Turkey | 75 |
| 7 | Australia | 54 |
| 8 | Spain | 52 |
| 9 | Brazil | 49 |
| 10 | United Kingdom | 48 |
| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | exploration-exploitation balance | 123 |
| 2 | feature selection | 88 |
| 3 | combinatorial optimization | 82 |
| 4 | local optima avoidance | 78 |
| 5 | engineering design optimization | 64 |
| 6 | swarm intelligence | 62 |
| 7 | particle swarm optimization | 58 |
| 8 | premature convergence | 55 |
| 9 | multi-objective optimization | 52 |
Most-cited papers#
| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,345 | 27.9 | Equilibrium optimizer: A novel optimization algorithm | Knowledge-Based Systems | 2019-11-06 | Afshin Faramarzi, Mohammad Heidarinejad, Brent Stephens et al. |
| 2 | 2,228 | 33.1 | Aquila Optimizer: A novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm | Computers & Industrial Engineering | 2021-03-23 | Laith Abualigah, Dalia Yousri, Mohamed Abd Elaziz et al. |
| 3 | 1,449 | 22.1 | African vultures optimization algorithm: A new nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm for global optimization problems | Computers & Industrial Engineering | 2021-05-21 | Benyamın Abdollahzadeh, Farhad Soleimanian Gharehchopogh, Seyedali Mirjalili |
| 4 | 1,442 | 24.1 | Reptile Search Algorithm (RSA): A nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimizer | Expert Systems with Applications | 2021-11-05 | Laith Abualigah, Mohamed Abd Elaziz, Putra Sumari et al. |
| 5 | 1,240 | 15.5 | Chimp optimization algorithm | Expert Systems with Applications | 2020-02-29 | Mohammad Khishe, Mohammad Reza Mosavi |
Cite this page
Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “metaheuristic optimization”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-optimization
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-metaheuristic-optimization,
author = {{Scholar4AI}},
title = {Papers on “metaheuristic optimization”},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-optimization}},
urldate = {2026-11-03},
note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}