# DeepResearch Arena: The First Exam of LLMs' Research Abilities via Seminar-Grounded Tasks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01396 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01396/

## Key facts

- Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 22 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Sep 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Web, search, and research agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/web-search-and-research-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Think you have Solved Question Answering? Try ARC, the AI2 Reasoning Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05457/) (2018)
- [HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09600/) (2018)
- [GPQA: A Graduate-Level Google-Proof Q&A Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12022/) (2023)
- [Extracting Training Data from Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07805/) (2020)
- [Learn to Explain: Multimodal Reasoning via Thought Chains for Science Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.09513/) (2022)
- [MuSiQue: Multihop Questions via Single-hop Question Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00573/) (2021)
- [Did Aristotle Use a Laptop? A Question Answering Benchmark with Implicit Reasoning Strategies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02235/) (2021)
- [BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12516/) (2025)
- [Agent Laboratory: Using LLM Agents as Research Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04227/) (2025)
- [ToolAlpaca: Generalized Tool Learning for Language Models with 3000 Simulated Cases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05301/) (2023)
- [DeepResearch Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Deep Research Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11763/) (2025)
- [Tool Learning with Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17935/) (2024)
- [LAB-Bench: Measuring Capabilities of Language Models for Biology Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10362/) (2024)
- [Agentic Reasoning: A Streamlined Framework for Enhancing LLM Reasoning with Agentic Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.04644/) (2025)
- [Chain of Ideas: Revolutionizing Research Via Novel Idea Development with LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13185/) (2024)
- [Does BERT Pretrained on Clinical Notes Reveal Sensitive Data?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07762/) (2021)
- [ResearchBench: Benchmarking LLMs in Scientific Discovery via Inspiration-Based Task Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21248/) (2025)
- [LessLeak-Bench: A First Investigation of Data Leakage in LLMs Across 83 Software Engineering Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06215/) (2025)
- [Adaptive Tool Use in Large Language Models with Meta-Cognition Trigger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12961/) (2025)
- [ExpertLongBench: Benchmarking Language Models on Expert-Level Long-Form Generation Tasks with Structured Checklists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01241/) (2025)
- [ThoughtSource: A central hub for large language model reasoning data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11596/) (2023)
- [Learning Semantic Similarity for Very Short Texts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00765/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [ResearchRubrics: A Benchmark of Prompts and Rubrics For Evaluating Deep Research Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.07685/) (2025)
- [Reasoning via Video: The First Evaluation of Video Models' Reasoning Abilities through Maze-Solving Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15065/) (2025)
- [FinDeepResearch: Evaluating Deep Research Agents in Rigorous Financial Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13936/) (2025)
- [DEER: A Benchmark for Evaluating Deep Research Agents on Expert Report Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17776/) (2025)
- [FinToolBench: Evaluating LLM Agents for Real-World Financial Tool Use](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.08262/) (2026)
- [AutoResearch AI: Towards AI-Powered Research Automation for Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23204/) (2026)
- [Can Knowledge-Graph-based Retrieval Augmented Generation Really Retrieve What You Need?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16582/) (2025)
- [DR-Arena: an Automated Evaluation Framework for Deep Research Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.10504/) (2026)
- [DLLM Agent: See Farther, Run Faster](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07451/) (2026)
- [Why Your Deep Research Agent Fails? On Hallucination Evaluation in Full Research Trajectory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22984/) (2026)
- [Hunt Instead of Wait: Evaluating Deep Data Research on Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02039/) (2026)
- [Dr. Bench: A Multidimensional Evaluation for Deep Research Agents, from Answers to Reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02190/) (2025)
- [ARCHE: A Novel Task to Evaluate LLMs on Latent Reasoning Chain Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12485/) (2025)
- [SciEvalKit: An Open-source Evaluation Toolkit for Scientific General Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22334/) (2025)
- [CausalEvolve: Towards Open-Ended Discovery with Causal Scratchpad](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14575/) (2026)
- [R2-Write: Reflection and Revision for Open-Ended Writing with Deep Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03004/) (2026)
- [IntentRL: Training Proactive User-intent Agents for Open-ended Deep Research via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03468/) (2026)
- [JADE: Expert-Grounded Dynamic Evaluation for Open-Ended Professional Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06486/) (2026)
- [Towards Knowledgeable Deep Research: Framework and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07720/) (2026)
- [ARAC: Benchmarking Auto-Research's Alignment and Completeness on End-to-End Researchs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12788/) (2026)
- [AISE-Bench: A Full-Cycle Curated Benchmark for Information Seeking on Academic Knowledge Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20498/) (2026)
- [LegalCiteTrust: Benchmarking Citation Trustworthiness in Chinese Long-Form Legal Research Reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20872/) (2026)
- [Diversifying Personalized Research Ideation against AI-Induced Homogenization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.28087/) (2026)
- [From Simple QA to Deep Research: A Verifiable Benchmark Constructed through Iterative Task Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02163/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep research agents have attracted growing attention for their potential to orchestrate multi-stage research workflows, spanning literature synthesis, methodological design, and empirical verification. Despite these strides, evaluating their research capability faithfully is rather challenging due to the difficulty of collecting frontier research questions that genuinely capture researchers' attention and intellectual curiosity. To address this gap, we introduce DeepResearch Arena, a benchmark grounded in academic seminars that capture rich expert discourse and interaction, better reflecting real-world research environments and reducing the risk of data leakage. To automatically construct DeepResearch Arena, we propose a Multi-Agent Hierarchical Task Generation (MAHTG) system that extracts research-worthy inspirations from seminar transcripts. The MAHTG system further translates research-worthy inspirations into high-quality research tasks, ensuring the traceability of research task formulation while filtering noise. With the MAHTG system, we curate DeepResearch Arena with over 10,000 high-quality research tasks from over 200 academic seminars, spanning 12 disciplines, such as literature, history, and science. Our extensive evaluation shows that DeepResearch Arena presents substantial challenges for current state-of-the-art agents, with clear performance gaps observed across different models.