Reinforcement Learning papers, 2023–2026

Key findings

• Reinforcement Learning went from 1,070 papers in 2023 to 2,985 in 2026, roughly 2.8x in three years.
• NeurIPS publishes the most Reinforcement Learning work: 2,494 papers from 2023 to 2026, 36% of the four-venue total.
• The fastest-growing overlap is with Reasoning Models: papers tagged with both rose from 9 in 2023 to 437 in 2026.

Representative papers

Spread across years and venues so every edition shows up

• NeurIPS 2026\texttt{FEROM}: Frontier Endogenous Reveal-Order Marginal Policy Optimization for Masked Diffusion LMs
• ICML 2026$\text{DT}^\text{2}$: Decision-Targeted Digital Twins
• ICLR 2026$\nabla$-Reasoner: LLM Reasoning via Test-Time Gradient Descent in Textual Space
• CVPR 2026A Causal Marriage between VLM and IRM from Understanding to
• NeurIPS 2025$\texttt{G1}$: Teaching LLMs to Reason on Graphs with Reinforcement Learning
• ICML 2025A Computationally Efficient Algorithm for Infinite-Horizon Average-Reward Linear MDPs
• ICLR 2025$\phi$-Update: A Class of Policy Update Methods with Policy Convergence Guarantee
• CVPR 2025All-Optical Nonlinear Diffractive Deep Network for Ultrafast Image Denoising
• NeurIPS 2024A Critical Evaluation of AI Feedback for Aligning Large Language Models
• ICML 2024${\rm E}(3)$-Equivariant Actor-Critic Methods for Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
• ICLR 2024A Black-box Approach for Non-stationary Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
• CVPR 2024DMR: Decomposed Multi-Modality Representations for Frames and Events Fusion in Visual Reinforcement Learning
• NeurIPS 2023“Why Not Looking backward?” A Robust Two-Step Method to Automatically Terminate Bayesian Optimization
• ICML 2023A Connection between One-Step RL and Critic Regularization in Reinforcement Learning
• ICLR 2023$O(T^{-1})$ Convergence of Optimistic-Follow-the-Regularized-Leader in Two-Player Zero-Sum Markov Games
• CVPR 2023"Seeing" Electric Network Frequency From Events
• NeurIPS 2026$\varphi$TD: Distributional Reinforcement Learning using Characteristic Functions
• ICML 2026$\textit{S}$-SPPO: Semantic-Calibrated Self-Play Preference Optimization
• ICLR 2026$AutoDrive\text{-}P^3$: Unified Chain of Perception–Prediction–Planning Thought via Reinforcement Fine-Tuning
• CVPR 2026AdaptVision Efficient Vision-Language Models via Adaptive Visual Acquisition

All Reinforcement Learning papers

1,827 papers, page 8 of 37

351. ICLR 2026HWC-Loco: A Hierarchical Whole-Body Control Approach to Robust Humanoid Locomotion
352. ICLR 2026Hybrid Reinforcement: when reward is sparse, better to be dense
353. ICLR 2026Hyperparameter Trajectory Inference with Conditional Lagrangian Optimal Transport
354. ICLR 2026I-DRUID: Layout to image generation via instance-disentangled representation and unpaired data
355. ICLR 2026ImageDoctor: Diagnosing Text-to-Image Generation via Grounded Image Reasoning
356. ICLR 2026Imitation Learning as Return Distribution Matching
357. ICLR 2026Improving and Accelerating Offline RL in Large Discrete Action Spaces with Structured Policy Initialization
358. ICLR 2026Improving Discrete Diffusion Unmasking Policies Beyond Explicit Reference Policies
359. ICLR 2026Improving Feasibility via Fast Autoencoder-Based Projections
360. ICLR 2026Improving Human-AI Coordination through Online Adversarial Training and Generative Models
361. ICLR 2026Improving Reasoning for Diffusion Language Models via Group Diffusion Policy Optimization
362. ICLR 2026In-Context Compositional Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learning
363. ICLR 2026In-Context Learning for Pure Exploration
364. ICLR 2026In-The-Flow Agentic System Optimization for Effective Planning and Tool Use
365. ICLR 2026Incentivizing Agentic Reasoning in LLM Judges via Tool-Integrated Reinforcement Learning
366. ICLR 2026Incentivizing Consistent, Effective and Scalable Reasoning Capability in Audio LLMs via Reasoning Process Rewards
367. ICLR 2026Incentivizing LLM Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning with Functional Monte Carlo Tree Search
368. ICLR 2026Inference-time scaling of diffusion models through classical search
369. ICLR 2026InfGen: Scenario Generation as Next Token Group Prediction
370. ICLR 2026Influence without Confounding: Causal Discovery from Temporal Data with Long-term Carry-over Effects
371. ICLR 2026Information Gain-based Policy Optimization: A Simple and Effective Approach for Multi-Turn LLM Agents
372. ICLR 2026Information-based Value Iteration Networks for Decision Making Under Uncertainty
373. ICLR 2026InfoScan: Information-Efficient Visual Scanning via Resource-Adaptive Walks
374. ICLR 2026Inpainting-Guided Policy Optimization for Diffusion Large Language Models
375. ICLR 2026InputDSA: Demixing, then comparing recurrent and externally driven dynamics
376. ICLR 2026InSight-o3: Empowering Multimodal Foundation Models with Generalized Visual Search
377. ICLR 2026Instance-Dependent Fixed-Budget Pure Exploration in Reinforcement Learning
378. ICLR 2026Instance-wise Adaptive Scheduling via Derivative-Free Meta-Learning
379. ICLR 2026Intention-Conditioned Flow Occupancy Models
380. ICLR 2026Inter-Agent Relative Representations for Multi-Agent Option Discovery
381. ICLR 2026Interact-RAG: Reason and Interact with the Corpus, Beyond Black-Box Retrieval
382. ICLR 2026Inverse Reinforcement Learning with Dynamic Reward Scaling for LLM Alignment
383. ICLR 2026Invert4TVG: A Temporal Video Grounding Framework with Inversion Tasks Preserving Action Understanding Ability
384. ICLR 2026Is Pure Exploitation Sufficient in Exogenous MDPs with Linear Function Approximation?
385. ICLR 2026IterResearch: Rethinking Long-Horizon Agents via Markovian State Reconstruction
386. ICLR 2026J1: Incentivizing Thinking in LLM-as-a-Judge via Reinforcement Learning
387. ICLR 2026Jackpot: Align Actor-Policy Distribution for scalable and stable RL for LLM
388. ICLR 2026Judo: A Juxtaposed Domain-oriented Multimodal Reasoner for Industrial Anomaly QA
389. ICLR 2026Kevin: Multi-Turn RL for Generating CUDA Kernels
390. ICLR 2026Kimi-Dev: Agentless Training as Skill Prior for SWE-agents
391. ICLR 2026KL-Regularized Reinforcement Learning is Designed to Mode Collapse
392. ICLR 2026Koopman-Assisted Trajectory Synthesis: A Data Augmentation Framework for Offline Imitation Learning
393. ICLR 2026LadderSym: A Multimodal Interleaved Transformer for Music Practice Error Detection
394. ICLR 2026Language Agents for Hypothesis-driven Clinical Decision Making with Reinforcement Learning
395. ICLR 2026LaSeR: Reinforcement Learning with Last-Token Self-Rewarding
396. ICLR 2026Latent Adaptation of Foundation Policies for Sim-to-Real Transfer
397. ICLR 2026Latent Visual Reasoning
398. ICLR 2026Learn More with Less: Uncertainty Consistency Guided Query Selection for RLVR
399. ICLR 2026Learn the Ropes, Then Trust the Wins: Self-imitation with Progressive Exploration for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
400. ICLR 2026Learn to Reason Efficiently with Adaptive Length-based Reward Shaping

FAQ

How many Reinforcement Learning papers were published at NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML and CVPR from 2023 to 2026?

6,885 in total: 1,070 in 2023, 1,190 in 2024, 1,640 in 2025, 2,985 in 2026.

How many Reinforcement Learning papers are at NeurIPS 2026?

NeurIPS 2026 has 760 Reinforcement Learning papers, versus 784 the year before.

How many Reinforcement Learning papers are at ICLR 2026?

ICLR 2026 has 911 Reinforcement Learning papers, versus 379 the year before.

How many Reinforcement Learning papers are at ICML 2026?

ICML 2026 has 1,021 Reinforcement Learning papers, versus 405 the year before.

How many Reinforcement Learning papers are at CVPR 2026?

CVPR 2026 has 293 Reinforcement Learning papers, versus 72 the year before.

Which conference publishes the most Reinforcement Learning papers?

NeurIPS, with 2,494 papers from 2023 to 2026.