---
title: "FOCS (A*): papers and universities"
description: "FOCS (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) is rated A* by the CORE Conference Rankings (ICORE2026); OpenAlex lists 283 of its papers from 2024–2026 (141 in 2024, 142 in 2025; 2026 not in OpenAlex yet). By the countries of the authors' institutions, the most papers come from the United States (193), Switzerland (33) and Israel (32)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/proceedings/focs
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/proceedings/focs.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "FOCS (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) is rated A* by the CORE Conference Rankings (ICORE2026); OpenAlex lists 283 of its papers from 2024–2026 (141 in 2024, 142 in 2025; 2026 not in OpenAlex yet). (as of 2026-11-02)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-02T12:20:52+09:00
window: 2026-10-04 to 2026-11-02
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# FOCS: IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science — papers and institutions, 2024–2026

Papers of FOCS, IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (CORE rank A*; field: Theory of computation), 2024–2026: per year, the institutions, countries and topics, and the most-cited papers. Ranks are those of the CORE Conference Rankings, edition ICORE2026 (portal.core.edu.au), applied to every year shown. Papers are the works OpenAlex lists for the conference's proceedings, or for the issues of a conference-linked journal that publishes its papers (such as PACMPL, PVLDB or ACM TOG), by publication year; workshops, companion volumes, posters and Findings are left out. A paper counts once for each institution and country among its authors' affiliations as OpenAlex assigns them; papers without affiliations in OpenAlex count for none. For conferences published in book series that OpenAlex files as one source (LNCS, LIPIcs, SIAM and IOS Press proceedings), the papers are found by DOI: those of the volumes with the conference's title in Crossref, or LIPIcs DOIs, which name the conference. Conferences without DOIs (PMLR, USENIX, OpenReview) are listed without counts. A dash (–) for a year means OpenAlex has no papers of the conference for it yet: the proceedings are not published or indexed yet, or the conference did not meet that year (some meet every other year). 2026 counts what OpenAlex had indexed by 2026-11-02.

All conferences: https://scholar4ai.com/proceedings.md

## Key findings

- FOCS (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) is rated A* by the CORE Conference Rankings (ICORE2026); OpenAlex lists 283 of its papers from 2024–2026 (141 in 2024, 142 in 2025; 2026 not in OpenAlex yet).
- By the countries of the authors' institutions, the most papers come from the United States (193), Switzerland (33) and Israel (32).
- The institutions with the most papers are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (45), Carnegie Mellon University (24) and University of California, Berkeley (24).
- Its most-cited paper of these years is “Universal Optimality of Dijkstra Via Beyond-Worst-Case Heaps” (2024), with 37 citations.

## Papers per year

*FOCS papers per publication year in OpenAlex (–: not in OpenAlex yet)*

| Year | Papers | With affiliations |
|---|---:|---:|
| 2024 | 141 | 133 |
| 2025 | 142 | 134 |
| 2026 | – | – |

## Sources

*Where OpenAlex lists the papers*

| OpenAlex source | Which papers |
|---|---|
| [S4210175768](https://openalex.org/S4210175768) | The conference's proceedings |

## Who publishes there

*Institutions with the most FOCS papers, 2024–2026*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 45 |
| 2 | Carnegie Mellon University | 24 |
| 3 | University of California, Berkeley | 24 |
| 4 | ETH Zurich | 22 |
| 5 | Princeton University | 16 |
| 6 | [Stanford University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/stanford-university.md) | 16 |
| 7 | University of Michigan | 14 |
| 8 | Harvard University | 11 |
| 9 | University of Waterloo | 10 |
| 10 | [Tel Aviv University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tel-aviv-university.md) | 10 |

*Countries with the most FOCS papers, 2024–2026*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 193 |
| 2 | Switzerland | 33 |
| 3 | Israel | 32 |
| 4 | Germany | 20 |
| 5 | Canada | 19 |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 18 |
| 7 | China | 14 |
| 8 | Denmark | 14 |
| 9 | India | 13 |
| 10 | Japan | 10 |

*Keywords with the most FOCS papers, 2024–2026*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | lower bounds | 31 |
| 2 | approximation algorithms | 25 |
| 3 | query complexity | 13 |
| 4 | randomized algorithms | 12 |
| 5 | sample complexity | 12 |
| 6 | sublinear-time algorithms | 11 |
| 7 | communication complexity | 10 |
| 8 | hardness of approximation | 10 |
| 9 | deterministic algorithms | 9 |
| 10 | polynomial-time algorithms | 8 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited FOCS papers of 2024–2026 (citations counted by OpenAlex)*

| # | Citations | Title | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---|---|---|
| 1 | 37 | [Universal Optimality of Dijkstra Via Beyond-Worst-Case Heaps](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00125) | 2024-10-27 | Bernhard Haeupler, Richard Hladík, Václav Rozhoň et al. |
| 2 | 24 | [Simple Constructions of Linear-Depth t-Designs and Pseudorandom Unitaries](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00038) | 2024-10-27 | Tony Metger, Alexander Poremba, Makrand Sinha et al. |
| 3 | 18 | [High-Temperature Gibbs States are Unentangled and Efficiently Preparable](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00068) | 2024-10-27 | Ainesh Bakshi, Allen Liu, Ankur Moitra et al. |
| 4 | 16 | [Optimal Tradeoffs for Estimating Pauli Observables](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00072) | 2024-10-27 | Sitan Chen, Weiyuan Gong, Qi Ye |
| 5 | 15 | [Near-Optimal Deterministic Network Decomposition and Ruling Set, and Improved MIS](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00007) | 2024-10-27 | Mohsen Ghaffari, Christoph Grunau |
| 6 | 14 | [Efficient Approximate Unitary Designs from Random Pauli Rotations](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00036) | 2024-10-27 | Jeongwan Haah, Yunchao Liu, Xinyu Tan |
| 7 | 13 | [Efficient Unitary Designs from Random Sums and Permutations](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00037) | 2024-10-27 | Chi-Fang Chen, Jordan Docter, Michelle Xu et al. |
| 8 | 12 | [Deterministic Algorithm and Faster Algorithm for Submodular Maximization Subject to a Matroid Constraint](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00050) | 2024-10-27 | Niv Buchbinder, Moran Feldman |
| 9 | 12 | [Quantum Eigenvalue Processing](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00070) | 2024-10-27 | Guang Hao Low, Yuan Su |
| 10 | 10 | [Certifying Almost All Quantum States with Few Single-Qubit Measurements](https://doi.org/10.1109/focs61266.2024.00079) | 2024-10-27 | Hsin-Yuan Huang, John P. Preskill, Mehdi Soleimanifar |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). FOCS: IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science — papers and institutions, 2024–2026. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/proceedings/focs

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-proceedings-focs,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {FOCS: IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science — papers and institutions, 2024–2026},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/proceedings/focs}},
  urldate = {2026-11-02},
  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/).