---
title: "Research in April 2026: top topics and papers"
description: "In April 2026, the tracked journals published 4,268 papers (finance 645, accounting 81, economics 819, management 466, operations research 494, AI 1,763). The most frequent keywords were “China” (151), “large language models” (151) and “Chinese listed companies” (109)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2026-04
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2026-04.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "In April 2026, the tracked journals published 4,268 papers (finance 645, accounting 81, economics 819, management 466, operations research 494, AI 1,763)."
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-10-26T14:52:47+09:00
window: 2026-09-27 to 2026-10-26
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Research published in April 2026

What the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals published in April 2026, by publication date in OpenAlex. This page is a fixed monthly record: its address does not change. Counts can still grow a little as late papers are indexed, and citations are updated daily.

## Key findings

- In April 2026, the tracked journals published 4,268 papers (finance 645, accounting 81, economics 819, management 466, operations research 494, AI 1,763).
- The most frequent keywords were “China” (151), “large language models” (151) and “Chinese listed companies” (109).
- Compared with their share in the twelve months before, the keywords that grew most were “generative AI” (44 papers, +18), “Mamba” (33 papers, +14) and “retrieval-augmented generation” (23 papers, +14).
- The institutions with the most papers were Chinese Academy of Sciences (78), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (59) and Zhejiang University (56).
- China was involved in 48% of the papers.
- The most-cited paper published that month is “Graph Neural Networks for Graphs With Heterophily: A Survey” (IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering), with 110 citations so far.

## Papers by category

*Papers published in April 2026*

| Category | Papers |
|---|---:|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 645 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 81 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 819 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 466 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 494 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1,763 |

## Top keywords

*Most frequent keywords, April 2026*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 151 |
| 2 | [large language models](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/large-language-models.md) | 151 |
| 3 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 109 |
| 4 | [graph neural networks](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/graph-neural-networks.md) | 80 |
| 5 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 72 |
| 6 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 72 |
| 7 | [contrastive learning](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/contrastive-learning.md) | 67 |
| 8 | state-owned enterprises | 62 |
| 9 | [emerging markets](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/emerging-markets.md) | 55 |
| 10 | [digital transformation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-transformation.md) | 51 |
| 11 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 50 |
| 12 | diffusion models | 49 |
| 13 | [explainable AI](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/explainable-ai.md) | 49 |
| 14 | class imbalance | 47 |
| 15 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 46 |

## Growing keywords

*Papers in April 2026 beyond the keyword's share in the twelve months before*

| Keyword | Papers | At earlier share | Extra papers |
|---|---:|---:|---:|
| generative AI | 44 | 26.3 | +17.7 |
| Mamba | 33 | 18.5 | +14.5 |
| retrieval-augmented generation | 23 | 8.7 | +14.3 |
| cross-modal alignment | 23 | 9.4 | +13.6 |
| multimodal large language models | 23 | 11.4 | +11.6 |
| semantic segmentation | 28 | 16.5 | +11.5 |
| low-rank adaptation | 16 | 4.8 | +11.2 |
| foreign direct investment | 23 | 13.0 | +10.0 |
| black-box attacks | 12 | 3.0 | +9.0 |
| domain generalization | 26 | 17.1 | +8.9 |

## Top keywords by category

*The five most frequent keywords per category, April 2026*

| Category | Most frequent keywords |
|---|---|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | Chinese listed companies (78); China (68); financial constraints (54); corporate governance (49); state-owned enterprises (45) |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | corporate governance (11); accounting education (5); China (4); Chinese listed companies (4); audit quality (4) |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | China (66); innovation (21); COVID-19 pandemic (19); economic growth (18); CO2 emissions (17) |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | generative AI (22); digital transformation (20); emerging markets (18); purchase intention (18); multinational corporations (17) |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | mixed-integer linear programming (22); multi-objective optimization (22); demand uncertainty (19); makespan minimization (13); last-mile delivery (11) |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | large language models (126); graph neural networks (76); contrastive learning (64); diffusion models (48); multimodal fusion (45) |

## Institutions

*Institutions with the most papers, April 2026*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 78 |
| 2 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 59 |
| 3 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 56 |
| 4 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 53 |
| 5 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 51 |
| 6 | Sun Yat-sen University | 48 |
| 7 | [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-electronic-science-and-technology-of-china.md) | 48 |
| 8 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 47 |
| 9 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 46 |
| 10 | Harbin Institute of Technology | 44 |

## Countries

*Countries, April 2026*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 2,043 |
| 2 | United States | 589 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 310 |
| 4 | Germany | 191 |
| 5 | Italy | 188 |
| 6 | Australia | 177 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | 172 |
| 8 | France | 162 |
| 9 | South Korea | 132 |
| 10 | India | 127 |

## Journals

*Journals with the most papers, April 2026*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 337 |
| 2 | [Pattern Recognition](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pattern-recognition.md) | 244 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 181 |
| 4 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 160 |
| 5 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 156 |
| 6 | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 131 |
| 7 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 111 |
| 8 | [Information Fusion](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-fusion.md) | 99 |
| 9 | [IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence.md) | 92 |
| 10 | [Information Processing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-processing-management.md) | 81 |

## Equations and models

*Most-mentioned equations and models, April 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords)*

| # | Equation or model | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Graph neural network (graph convolution)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/graph-neural-network-graph-convolution.md) | 30 |
| 2 | [Linear and integer programming](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/linear-and-integer-programming.md) | 25 |
| 3 | [Scaled dot-product attention (Transformer)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/scaled-dot-product-attention-transformer.md) | 25 |
| 4 | [Contrastive loss (InfoNCE)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/contrastive-loss-infonce.md) | 13 |
| 5 | [Convolutional neural network (CNN)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/convolutional-neural-network-cnn.md) | 6 |
| 6 | [Structural equation modeling (SEM)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/structural-equation-modeling-sem.md) | 6 |
| 7 | [Denoising diffusion model](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/denoising-diffusion-model.md) | 5 |
| 8 | [Gradient descent](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/gradient-descent.md) | 5 |
| 9 | [Shapley value (SHAP)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/shapley-value-shap.md) | 5 |
| 10 | [Kullback-Leibler divergence](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/kullback-leibler-divergence.md) | 4 |

## Datasets

*Most-mentioned datasets, April 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords)*

| # | Dataset | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100 | 6 |
| 2 | ImageNet | 5 |
| 3 | nuScenes / Waymo Open / Argoverse | 5 |
| 4 | Skeleton and pose (NTU RGB+D, Human3.6M) | 3 |
| 5 | MS COCO | 2 |
| 6 | YouTube / TikTok | 2 |
| 7 | Airbnb | 1 |
| 8 | Cityscapes | 1 |
| 9 | MNIST / Fashion-MNIST | 1 |
| 10 | PASCAL VOC | 1 |

## Most-cited papers published in April 2026

*Most-cited papers published in April 2026 (citations counted by OpenAlex, updated daily)*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 110 | 16.2 | [Graph Neural Networks for Graphs With Heterophily: A Survey](https://doi.org/10.1109/tkde.2026.3680353) | [IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-knowledge-and-data-engineering.md) | 2026-04-02 | Xin Zheng, Yi Wang, Yixin Liu et al. |
| 2 | 77 | 11.4 | [The global transmission of U.S. monetary policy](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2026.104259) | [Journal of International Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-economics.md) | 2026-04-03 | Riccardo Degasperi, Seokki Simon Hong, G. Ricco |
| 3 | 57 | 8.9 | [The Eurasian roundabout: Trade flows into Russia through the Caucasus and Central Asia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105340) | [European Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-economic-review.md) | 2026-04-15 | Maxim Chupilkin, Beata Smarzynska Javorcik, Alexander Plekhanov |
| 4 | 50 | 8.2 | [Is K-fold cross validation the best model selection method for machine learning?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2026.104404) | [Information Fusion](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-fusion.md) | 2026-04-23 | J. M. Górriz, R. Martin-Clemente, Fermín Segovia et al. |
| 5 | 49 | 7.5 | [When Optimal Transport Meets Photo-Realistic Image Dehazing With Unpaired Training](https://doi.org/10.1109/tnnls.2026.3673760) | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 2026-04-09 | Yuanbo Wen, Tao Gao, Shan Liang et al. |
| 6 | 48 | 8.2 | [Multi-objective material-structure integrated optimization of recycled aggregate CFST stub columns for mechanical performance, reliability, and sustainability](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2026.132597) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2026-04-30 | Jinlong Liu, X.-A. Kong, Shiqi Wang et al. |
| 7 | 47 | 7.9 | [A Survey on Vision--Language--Action Models for Embodied AI](https://doi.org/10.1109/tnnls.2025.3650584) | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 2026-04-28 | Yueen Ma, Zixing Song, Yuzheng Zhuang et al. |
| 8 | 45 | 7.4 | [Explainable artificial intelligence techniques for interpretation of food models: a review](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-026-11553-2) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2026-04-24 | Leonardo Arrighi, Ingrid Alves de Moraes, Marco Zullich et al. |
| 9 | 44 | 7.2 | [Gray langurs optimizer: a multi-group bio-inspired optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-026-11529-2) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2026-04-22 | Saeid Barshandeh, Nima Khodadadi, Benyamın Abdollahzadeh et al. |
| 10 | 29 | 4.3 | [An integrated method of advanced optimisation and adaptive ensemble learning for ship fuel consumption prediction](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2026.105659) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2026-04-02 | Wenjie Cao, Xinjian Wang, Yaqing Shu et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Research published in April 2026. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2026-04

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-reports-2026-04,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Research published in April 2026},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2026-04}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal 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/).