---
title: "Metaheuristic optimization research: papers and trends"
description: "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)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-optimization
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-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 “metaheuristic optimization” appeared in 2,528 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (1,557), operations research (898) and economics (26). (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 “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.

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

## 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

*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) | 92 | 97 | 97 | 148 | 194 | 255 | 227 | 176 | 158 | 113 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 91 | 80 | 100 | 73 | 106 | 87 | 85 | 104 | 90 | 82 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 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

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 209 |
| 2 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 169 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 99 |
| 4 | [Computers & Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-operations-research.md) | 74 |
| 5 | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 64 |
| 6 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 52 |
| 7 | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 42 |
| 8 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 35 |
| 9 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 29 |
| 10 | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 28 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | 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](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 18 |
| 9 | Wenzhou University | 18 |
| 10 | [Huazhong University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/huazhong-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 15 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | 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 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [exploration-exploitation balance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/exploration-exploitation-balance.md) | 123 |
| 2 | [feature selection](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/feature-selection.md) | 88 |
| 3 | [combinatorial optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/combinatorial-optimization.md) | 82 |
| 4 | local optima avoidance | 78 |
| 5 | engineering design optimization | 64 |
| 6 | swarm intelligence | 62 |
| 7 | [particle swarm optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/particle-swarm-optimization.md) | 58 |
| 8 | premature convergence | 55 |
| 9 | [multi-objective optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/multi-objective-optimization.md) | 52 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,345 | 27.9 | [Equilibrium optimizer: A novel optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2019.105190) | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 2019-11-06 | Afshin Faramarzi, Mohammad Heidarinejad, Brent Stephens et al. |
| 2 | 2,228 | 33.1 | [Aquila Optimizer: A novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2021.107250) | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 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](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2021.107408) | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 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](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116158) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2021-11-05 | Laith Abualigah, Mohamed Abd Elaziz, Putra Sumari et al. |
| 5 | 1,240 | 15.5 | [Chimp optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113338) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 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

```bibtex
@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}
}
```

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