Hybrid Retrieval

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Overview

Hybrid retrieval studies how to combine complementary search methods, especially keyword-based methods such as BM25 with dense vector search, and sometimes graphs, metadata, or visual signals. Systems commonly merge ranked lists with reciprocal rank fusion, calibrate or weight scores, and use rerankers, query expansion, or adaptive routing to refine results. The approach is used in settings such as question answering, document search, recommendations, and retrieval-augmented generation, where missing evidence or irrelevant context can undermine downstream answers. There is no universally best combination: gains depend on the domain, query type, and benchmark, while fusion and reranking can add latency or reduce precision.

Latest papers

CardsList

91 papers9 papers in the last four weeks, down 10% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Developing an Intelligent Job Recommendation System Using Semantic Retrieval and Explainable AI Techniques

    May 26, 2026Hussein Al Awad, Khaled Fathi OmarSemantic SearchRecommender Systems

    ∗Master of Web Science, Syrian Virtual University, Damascus, Syria

  2. Simorgh at SemEval-2026 task 7: Region-Aware Hybrid Retrieval for Low-Resource Cultural Reasoning in Multilingual Question Answering

    May 26, 2026Hadi Bayrami Asl Tekanlou, Mahdi Bakhtiyarzadeh, Jafar RazmaraRetrieval-Augmented GenerationCross-Lingual Reasoning in Language Models

    University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

  3. Query Symbolically or Retrieve Semantically? A Dataset and Method for Semi-Structured Question Answering

    May 26, 2026Mateusz Czyżnikiewicz, Ryszard Tuora, Adam Kozakiewicz +6Graph Retrieval-Augmented GenerationQuestion Answering

    Samsung AI Warsaw · Samsung AI Cambridge

  4. RAGEAR: Retrieval-Augmented Graph-Enhanced Academic Recommender

    May 26, 2026Francesco Granata, Lorenzo Lamazzi, Misael Mongiovì +2Learning to RankEducational Technology

    Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania, Italy · Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology, National Research Council, Italy

  5. Beyond Semantic Similarity: A Two-Phase Non-Parametric Retrieval Workflow for Corporate Credit Underwriting

    May 20, 2026Linus Ng Junjia, Ezekiel Tee Kongquan, Kelvin Heng +2Financial ServicesRetrieval-Augmented Generation

    OCBC, Singapore · 2Georgia Institute of Technology.

  6. Loom: Hybrid Retrieval-Scoring Outfit Recommendation with Semantic Material Compatibility and Occasion-Aware Embedding Priors

    May 11, 2026Anushree BerliaRecommender SystemsHybrid Retrieval

  7. Tatarstan Toponyms: A Bilingual Dataset and Hybrid RAG System for Geospatial Question Answering

    May 7, 2026Mullosharaf K. ArabovGeospatial QAQuestion Answering

    Department of Data Analysis and Programming Technologies Institute of Computational Mathematics and Information Technologies Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University Kazan, Russia

  8. Benchmarking Retrieval Strategies for Biomedical Retrieval-Augmented Generation: A Controlled Empirical Study

    May 4, 2026Devi Prasad Bal, Subhashree PuhanCross-Encoder RerankingRetrieval-Augmented Generation

    The University of Texas at Austin

  9. KG-First, LLM-Fallback: A Hybrid Microservice for Grounded Skill Search and Explanation

    May 2, 2026Ngoc Luyen Le, Marie-Hélène Abel, Bertrand LaforgeLLM GroundingHybrid Retrieval

    Gamaizer.ia, 93340 Le Raincy, France · Université de technologie de Compiègne, CNRS, Heudiasyc (Heuristics and Diagnosis of Complex Systems), CS 60319 - 60203 Compiègne Cedex, France · Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR 7585, LPMHE (Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et des Hautes Énergies), 75252 Paris cedex 05, France

  10. An End-to-End Ukrainian RAG for Local Deployment. Optimized Hybrid Search and Lightweight Generation

    Apr 23, 2026Mykola Trokhymovych, Yana Oliinyk, Nazarii NyzhnykRetrieval-Augmented GenerationHybrid Retrieval

    Pompeu Fabra University · Independent Researcher

  11. EHRAG: Bridging Semantic Gaps in Lightweight GraphRAG via Hybrid Hypergraph Construction and Retrieval

    Apr 19, 2026Yifan Song, Xingjian Tao, Zhicheng Yang +2Graph Retrieval-Augmented GenerationGraph-Based Retrieval

    1The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · 2The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

  12. Hybrid Retrieval for COVID-19 Literature: Comparing Rank Fusion and Projection Fusion with Diversity Reranking

    Apr 15, 2026Harishkumar Kishorkumar PrajapatiHybrid RetrievalBiomedical IR

    School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

  13. Adaptive Query Routing: A Tier-Based Framework for Hybrid Retrieval Across Financial, Legal, and Medical Documents

    Apr 14, 2026Afshan HashmiAdaptive RAGInformation Retrieval

    TRDC, Tuwaiq Academy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  14. The Effect of Document Selection on Query-focused Text Analysis

    Apr 13, 2026Sandesh S Rangreji, Mian Zhong, Anjalie FieldData SelectionHybrid Retrieval

    Johns Hopkins University

  15. RECIPER: A Dual-View Retrieval Pipeline for Procedure-Oriented Materials Question Answering

    Apr 13, 2026Zhuoyu Wu, Wenhui Ou, Pei-Sze Tan +3Evidence RetrievalScientific Document Retrieval

    CyPhi (ΨΦ) AI Research Lab, School of IT, Monash University, Malaysia Campus · Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology · Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  16. PatchRecall: Patch-Driven Retrieval for Automated Program Repair

    Apr 12, 2026Mahir Labib Dihan, Faria Binta Awal, Md. Ishrak AhsanAutomated Program RepairHybrid Retrieval

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)

  17. On the Representational Limits of Quantum-Inspired 1024-D Document Embeddings: An Experimental Evaluation Framework

    Apr 10, 2026Dario MaioQuantum-Inspired MLText Embedding Evaluation

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy

  18. CubeGraph: Efficient Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Spatial and Temporal Data

    Apr 8, 2026Mingyu Yang, Wentao Li, Wei WangHybrid RetrievalGraph-Based Retrieval

    HKUST (GZ) & HKUST China · University of Leicester United Kingdom

  19. From BM25 to Corrective RAG: Benchmarking Retrieval Strategies for Text-and-Table Documents

    Apr 2, 2026Meftun Akarsu, Recep Kaan Karaman, Christopher MierbachRAG EvaluationHybrid Retrieval

    Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt · Uludag University · Radiate

  20. Calibrated Fusion for Heterogeneous Graph-Vector Retrieval in Multi-Hop QA

    Mar 30, 2026Andre BacellarHybrid RetrievalData Fusion

  21. A Reference Architecture for Agentic Hybrid Retrieval in Dataset Search

    Mar 28, 2026Riccardo Terrenzi, Phongsakon Mark Konrad, Tim Lukas Adam +1Agentic RetrievalInformation Retrieval

    Centre for Industrial Software University of Southern Denmark Alsion 2, Sønderborg, 6400, Denmark

  22. Sustainable Hybrid Document-Routed Retrieval for Financial RAG: Resolving the Robustness-Precision Trade-off

    Mar 26, 2026Zhiyuan Cheng, Longying Lai, Yue LiuRetrieval-Augmented GenerationFinancial QA

    School of Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA · bSimon Business School, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA · cAccounting & Information Systems, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

  23. Graph-Aware Late Chunking for Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Biomedical Literature

    Mar 23, 2026Pouria Mortezaagha, Arya RahgozarRetrieval-Augmented GenerationBiomedical IR

    Methodological Implementation Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada · School of Engineering Design and Teaching Innovation, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

  24. SmartSearch: How Ranking Beats Structure for Conversational Memory Retrieval

    Mar 16, 2026Jesper Derehag, Carlos Calva, Timmy GhiurauConversational MemoryLong-Term Conversational Memory

    Midbrain.

  25. Retrieval-Enhanced Real Estate Appraisal

    Mar 13, 2026Simon Popelier, Matthieu X. B. Sarazin, Maximilien Bohm +4Hybrid Retrieval

    Homiwoo, 10 rue de la Boétie, 75008 Paris, France · École Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France

  26. TaSR-RAG: Taxonomy-guided Structured Reasoning for Retrieval-Augmented Generation

    Mar 10, 2026Jiashuo Sun, Yixuan Xie, Jimeng Shi +2Structured RAGRetrieval-Augmented Generation

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  27. StratRAG: A Multi-Hop Retrieval Evaluation Dataset for Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems

    Mar 6, 2026Aryan PatodiyaMulti-Hop RetrievalRAG Evaluation

    Department of Computer Science, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA, USA

  28. HTM-EAR: Importance-Preserving Tiered Memory with Hybrid Routing under Saturation

    Feb 27, 2026Shubham Kumar SinghAgent Memory ManagementHierarchical Memory

  29. MoDora: Tree-Based Semi-Structured Document Analysis System

    Feb 26, 2026Bangrui Xu, Qihang Yao, Zirui Tang +8Document QADocument Layout Analysis

    Shanghai Jiao Tong University · Microsoft Research · Beihang University +2

  30. HELIOS: Harmonizing Early Fusion, Late Fusion, and LLM Reasoning for Multi-Granular Table-Text Retrieval

    Feb 25, 2026Sungho Park, Joohyung Yun, Jongwuk Lee +1Information RetrievalHybrid Retrieval

    POSTECH, Republic of Korea · Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea