---
title: "Recommender systems research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “recommender systems” appeared in 1,274 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (1,006), information systems (148) and operations research (33)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/recommender-systems
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/recommender-systems.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 “recommender systems” appeared in 1,274 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (1,006), information systems (148) and operations research (33). (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 “recommender systems”

Research on “recommender systems” 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 “recommender systems” appeared in 1,274 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (1,006), information systems (148) and operations research (33).
- 192 of them were published in 2025, against 85 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were University of Science and Technology of China (17), Zhejiang University (15) and Chongqing University (14).
- The journals publishing most of them were Expert Systems with Applications (110), IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (71) and Knowledge-Based Systems (55).
- The most-cited of them is “Heterogeneous Information Network Embedding for Recommendation” (IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2018), with 1,208 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) | 64 | 63 | 76 | 92 | 115 | 117 | 96 | 103 | 159 | 121 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 13 | 20 | 17 | 19 | 9 | 23 | 9 | 15 | 8 | 15 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 3 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 2 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 85 | 91 | 106 | 122 | 139 | 148 | 113 | 128 | 192 | 150 |

## 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) | 110 |
| 2 | [IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-knowledge-and-data-engineering.md) | 71 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 55 |
| 4 | [Knowledge and Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-and-information-systems.md) | 37 |
| 5 | [Information Processing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-processing-management.md) | 29 |
| 6 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 27 |
| 7 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 20 |
| 8 | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 15 |
| 9 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 14 |
| 10 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 13 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [University of Science and Technology of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-science-and-technology-of-china.md) | 17 |
| 2 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 15 |
| 3 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 14 |
| 4 | [National University of Singapore](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-singapore.md) | 14 |
| 5 | [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-electronic-science-and-technology-of-china.md) | 14 |
| 6 | [Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university-of-posts-and-telecommunications.md) | 11 |
| 7 | [Hefei University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hefei-university-of-technology.md) | 11 |
| 8 | [Shanghai Jiao Tong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shanghai-jiao-tong-university.md) | 10 |
| 9 | [Anhui University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/anhui-university.md) | 9 |
| 10 | Chongqing University of Technology | 9 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 323 |
| 2 | United States | 64 |
| 3 | Australia | 39 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 27 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | 25 |
| 6 | India | 25 |
| 7 | Singapore | 25 |
| 8 | Italy | 24 |
| 9 | South Korea | 24 |
| 10 | Spain | 20 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | collaborative filtering | 103 |
| 2 | data sparsity | 62 |
| 3 | [graph neural networks](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/graph-neural-networks.md) | 52 |
| 4 | [graph convolutional networks](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/graph-convolutional-networks.md) | 35 |
| 5 | personalized recommendation | 32 |
| 6 | cold start | 31 |
| 7 | [contrastive learning](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/contrastive-learning.md) | 30 |
| 8 | rating prediction | 28 |
| 9 | [e-commerce](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/e-commerce.md) | 24 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,208 | 11.9 | [Heterogeneous Information Network Embedding for Recommendation](https://doi.org/10.1109/tkde.2018.2833443) | [IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-knowledge-and-data-engineering.md) | 2018-05-07 | Chuan Shi, Binbin Hu, Wayne Xin Zhao et al. |
| 2 | 1,035 | 12.1 | [A review: Knowledge reasoning over knowledge graph](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.112948) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2019-09-13 | Xiaojun Chen, Shengbin Jia, Yang Xiang |
| 3 | 742 | 6.9 | [The use of machine learning algorithms in recommender systems: A systematic review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.12.020) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2017-12-09 | Ivens Da Silva Portugal, Paulo Alencar, Donald D. Cowan |
| 4 | 637 | 11.8 | [A systematic review and research perspective on recommender systems](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-022-00592-5) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2022-05-03 | Deepjyoti Roy, Mala Dutta |
| 5 | 613 | 18.6 | [Autoencoders and their applications in machine learning: a survey](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-023-10662-6) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2024-02-03 | Kamal Berahmand, Fatemeh Daneshfar, Elaheh Sadat Salehi et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [What recommendations do to the people who get them](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/recommender-systems-and-welfare.md)

## Cite this page

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

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