mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DeepResearch-9K: A Challenging Benchmark Dataset of Deep-Research Agent

arXiv 2603.01152 ↗First posted 1 Mar 2026cs.AIcited by 8

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Web, search, and research agents

Abstract (arXiv)

Deep-research agents are capable of executing multi-step web exploration, targeted retrieval, and sophisticated question answering. Despite their powerful capabilities, deep-research agents face two critical bottlenecks: (1) the lack of large-scale, challenging datasets with real-world difficulty, and (2) the absence of accessible, open-source frameworks for data synthesis and agent training. To bridge these gaps, we first construct DeepResearch-9K, a large-scale challenging dataset specifically designed for deep-research scenarios built from open-source multi-hop question-answering (QA) datasets via a low-cost autonomous pipeline. Notably, it consists of (1) 9000 questions spanning three difficulty levels from L1 to L3 (2) high-quality search trajectories with reasoning chains from Tongyi-DeepResearch-30B-A3B, a state-of-the-art deep-research agent, and (3) verifiable answers. Furthermore, we develop an open-source training framework DeepResearch-R1 that supports (1) multi-turn web interactions, (2) different reinforcement learning (RL) approaches, and (3) different reward models such as rule-based outcome reward and LLM-as-judge feedback. Finally, empirical results demonstrate that agents trained on DeepResearch-9K under our DeepResearch-R1 achieve state-of-the-art results on challenging deep-research benchmarks. We release the DeepResearch-9K dataset on https://huggingface.co/datasets/artillerywu/DeepResearch-9K and the code of DeepResearch-R1 on https://github.com/Applied-Machine-Learning-Lab/DeepResearch-R1.

Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 50 of its 80 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Mar 2026.

Builds on

50 of 80 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

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  2. 2025Deep Research: A Survey of Autonomous Research Agents18 Aug
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  4. 2025Process vs. Outcome Reward: Which is Better for Agentic RAG Reinforcement Learning20 May
  5. 2023Agent4Ranking: Semantic Robust Ranking via Personalized Query Rewriting Using Multi-agent LLM24 Dec

Other references · 45

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.

8 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

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  2. 2026DeepSearchQA: Bridging the Comprehensiveness Gap for Deep Research Agents
  3. 2025DeepResearchEco: A Recursive Agentic Workflow for Complex Scientific Question Answering in Ecology
  4. 2026EigentSearch-Q+: Enhancing Deep Research Agents with Structured Reasoning Tools
  5. 2025Synthesizing Agentic Data for Web Agents with Progressive Difficulty Enhancement Mechanisms
  6. 2026From Intent to Evidence: A Categorical Approach for Structural Evaluation of Deep Research Agents
  7. 2026Total Recall QA: A Verifiable Evaluation Suite for Deep Research Agents
  8. 2025An Open and Reproducible Deep Research Agent for Long-Form Question Answering