---
title: "Missing data research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “missing data” appeared in 1,193 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (570), statistics (396) and operations research (76)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/missing-data
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/missing-data.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 “missing data” appeared in 1,193 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (570), statistics (396) and operations research (76). (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)
---

# Papers on “missing data”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/4.md)

Research on “missing data” 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 “missing data” appeared in 1,193 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (570), statistics (396) and operations research (76).
- 166 of them were published in 2025, against 76 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Chinese Academy of Sciences (15), Harbin Institute of Technology (13) and Southwest Jiaotong University (13).
- The journals publishing most of them were BMC Medical Research Methodology (59), Expert Systems with Applications (50) and Knowledge-Based Systems (31).
- The most-cited of them is “A survey on missing data in machine learning” (Journal Of Big Data, 2021), with 1,068 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) | 27 | 35 | 48 | 35 | 58 | 56 | 71 | 71 | 85 | 84 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 32 | 38 | 37 | 45 | 33 | 36 | 32 | 43 | 49 | 51 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 7 | 6 | 4 | 13 | 3 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 13 | 8 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 3 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 2 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 76 | 95 | 106 | 98 | 103 | 123 | 126 | 134 | 166 | 166 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [BMC Medical Research Methodology](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/bmc-medical-research-methodology.md) | 59 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 50 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 31 |
| 4 | [Information Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-sciences.md) | 26 |
| 5 | [Pattern Recognition](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pattern-recognition.md) | 25 |
| 6 | [IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-knowledge-and-data-engineering.md) | 23 |
| 7 | [Information Fusion](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-fusion.md) | 23 |
| 8 | [Statistics and Computing](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/statistics-and-computing.md) | 18 |
| 9 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 17 |
| 10 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 16 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 15 |
| 2 | [Harbin Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harbin-institute-of-technology.md) | 13 |
| 3 | [Southwest Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwest-jiaotong-university.md) | 13 |
| 4 | [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-electronic-science-and-technology-of-china.md) | 12 |
| 5 | [Sichuan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sichuan-university.md) | 11 |
| 6 | [Dalian University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dalian-university-of-technology.md) | 10 |
| 7 | [Southwest University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwest-university.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [Xidian University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xidian-university.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Beijing University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-university-of-technology.md) | 8 |
| 10 | [National University of Defense Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-defense-technology.md) | 8 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 280 |
| 2 | United States | 103 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 52 |
| 4 | Germany | 35 |
| 5 | Australia | 27 |
| 6 | Canada | 27 |
| 7 | Italy | 25 |
| 8 | Netherlands | 23 |
| 9 | Hong Kong | 22 |
| 10 | India | 19 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | missing data imputation | 45 |
| 2 | multiple imputation | 45 |
| 3 | missing at random | 28 |
| 4 | multi-view clustering | 25 |
| 5 | [feature selection](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/feature-selection.md) | 22 |
| 6 | incomplete multi-view clustering | 22 |
| 7 | complete case analysis | 19 |
| 8 | data quality | 19 |
| 9 | missing not at random | 18 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,068 | 17.7 | [A survey on missing data in machine learning](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00516-9) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2021-10-27 | Tlamelo Emmanuel, Thabiso Maupong, Dimane Mpoeleng et al. |
| 2 | 618 | 6.9 | [Uncertainty in big data analytics: survey, opportunities, and challenges](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-019-0206-3) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2019-06-04 | Reihaneh H. Hariri, Erik M. Fredericks, Kate M. Bowers |
| 3 | 611 | 6.7 | [Missing value imputation: a review and analysis of the literature (2006–2017)](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-019-09709-4) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2019-04-05 | Wei‐Chao Lin, Chih‐Fong Tsai |
| 4 | 376 | 4.7 | [Sensor data quality: a systematic review](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-020-0285-1) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2020-02-11 | Hui Yie Teh, Andreas W. Kempa-Liehr, Kevin I‐Kai Wang |
| 5 | 374 | 3.9 | [A Bayesian tensor decomposition approach for spatiotemporal traffic data imputation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2018.11.003) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2018-11-28 | Xinyu Chen, Zhaocheng He, Lijun Sun |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “missing data”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/missing-data

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