---
title: "Non-convex optimization research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “non-convex optimization” appeared in 1,112 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (707), AI (356) and statistics (40)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/non-convex-optimization
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/non-convex-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 “non-convex optimization” appeared in 1,112 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (707), AI (356) and statistics (40). (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 “non-convex optimization”

Research on “non-convex 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 “non-convex optimization” appeared in 1,112 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (707), AI (356) and statistics (40).
- 161 of them were published in 2025, against 72 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (20), Chinese Academy of Sciences (13) and Georgia Institute of Technology (12).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (69), Mathematical Programming (53) and Journal of Global Optimization (48).
- The most-cited of them is “Clustered Federated Learning: Model-Agnostic Distributed Multitask Optimization Under Privacy Constraints” (IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, 2020), with 1,343 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) | 50 | 54 | 73 | 65 | 64 | 77 | 68 | 72 | 100 | 84 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 22 | 19 | 33 | 21 | 33 | 45 | 46 | 45 | 55 | 37 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 72 | 77 | 109 | 95 | 99 | 126 | 119 | 127 | 161 | 127 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-optimization-theory-and-applications.md) | 69 |
| 2 | [Mathematical Programming](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/mathematical-programming.md) | 53 |
| 3 | [Journal of Global Optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-global-optimization.md) | 48 |
| 4 | [Computational Optimization and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computational-optimization-and-applications.md) | 41 |
| 5 | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 26 |
| 6 | [IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence.md) | 24 |
| 7 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 24 |
| 8 | [Optimization Letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/optimization-letters.md) | 24 |
| 9 | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 20 |
| 10 | [Machine Learning](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/machine-learning.md) | 17 |

*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) | 20 |
| 2 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 13 |
| 3 | [Georgia Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/georgia-institute-of-technology.md) | 12 |
| 4 | [Northeast Normal University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/northeast-normal-university.md) | 12 |
| 5 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 10 |
| 6 | University of Florence | 10 |
| 7 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [National University of Singapore](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-singapore.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Southern University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southern-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 9 |
| 10 | [University of Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 9 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 236 |
| 2 | United States | 114 |
| 3 | France | 38 |
| 4 | Italy | 33 |
| 5 | Germany | 32 |
| 6 | Hong Kong | 29 |
| 7 | United Kingdom | 27 |
| 8 | Singapore | 18 |
| 9 | Vietnam | 18 |
| 10 | Belgium | 17 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [convergence analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/convergence-analysis.md) | 94 |
| 2 | [convergence rate](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/convergence-rate.md) | 51 |
| 3 | nonsmooth optimization | 46 |
| 4 | global convergence | 36 |
| 5 | global optimization | 32 |
| 6 | Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz property | 21 |
| 7 | linear convergence | 21 |
| 8 | stochastic gradient descent | 21 |
| 9 | variance reduction | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,343 | 18.1 | [Clustered Federated Learning: Model-Agnostic Distributed Multitask Optimization Under Privacy Constraints](https://doi.org/10.1109/tnnls.2020.3015958) | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 2020-08-24 | Felix Sattler, Klaus‐Robert Müller, Wojciech Samek |
| 2 | 475 | 4.9 | [Rank Minimization for Snapshot Compressive Imaging](https://doi.org/10.1109/tpami.2018.2873587) | [IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence.md) | 2018-10-04 | Yang Liu, Xin Yuan, Jinli Suo et al. |
| 3 | 473 | 4.5 | [Subspace Clustering by Block Diagonal Representation](https://doi.org/10.1109/tpami.2018.2794348) | [IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence.md) | 2018-01-16 | Canyi Lu, Jiashi Feng, Zhouchen Lin et al. |
| 4 | 351 | 3.3 | [DC programming and DCA: thirty years of developments](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10107-018-1235-y) | [Mathematical Programming](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/mathematical-programming.md) | 2018-01-24 | Hoai An Le Thi, Tao Pham Dinh |
| 5 | 350 | 16.0 | [Artificial lemming algorithm: a novel bionic meta-heuristic technique for solving real-world engineering optimization problems](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-024-11023-7) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2025-01-05 | Yaning Xiao, Hao Cui, Ruba Abu Khurma et al. |

## Cite this page

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

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