ScholarCatalyst reports benchmark results for research-paper retrieval
ScholarCatalyst is an arXiv preprint reporting a benchmark based on lead authors’ judgments about earlier papers that could have helped later computer-science projects. Its authors report Recall@20 scores of 0.42 for agentic search, 0.48 for embedding retrieval, and 0.51 for an agent built on Claude Fable 5.1. The supplied record leaves peer review, independent evaluation, detailed methodology, sample representativeness, and annotation-process limitations unresolved.
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ScholarCatalyst is an arXiv preprint describing a benchmark for whether research-search systems can retrieve earlier papers that did, or could, have helped advance a later computer-science project. Its authors report Recall@20 scores of 0.42 for agentic search, 0.48 for embedding retrieval, and 0.51 for an agent built on Claude Fable 5.1. The record establishes neither peer review nor independent replication of those results. [1]
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What we know now
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[1] arXiv primary record and abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02202v1 (ScholarCatalyst: A Benchmark for Retrieving Papers That Inspire New Research; version 1, submitted 1 October 2026). It supplies the benchmark description, counts, and reported Recall@20 figures.
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The supplied evidence is a complete primary arXiv record, but it does not establish peer review, independent replication, release of benchmark materials, or the detailed methodology needed to assess generalizability.
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Lead authors who supplied labels and rationales
The authors say 184 lead authors contributed judgments used to build the benchmark.Recent computer-science papers represented
The authors say the benchmark draws on 207 recent computer-science papers.Reported embedding-retrieval Recall@20
This is the result the authors report for embedding retrieval on their task.Reported Claude Fable 5.1 agent Recall@20
The authors report this score for an agent built on Claude Fable 5.1. The supplied record does not further document the model.These are author-reported figures from an arXiv preprint. The supplied material does not provide independent verification or full methodological detail.
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What the preprint says it built
The authors describe ScholarCatalyst as a benchmark for retrieving earlier research that could offer intellectual direction to a new project. They say an automated pipeline made the author-annotation process scalable; it did not replace the lead authors as the stated source of the labels and rationales. This is the authors’ account of the resource and has not been independently corroborated in the supplied evidence. [1]
- The authors say 184 lead authors of 207 recent computer-science papers supplied labels and detailed rationales.
- The task starts with an initial research question and asks a system to retrieve relevant earlier papers from literature available when the later project began.
- The author judgments identify candidate papers that did, or could have, advanced the project.
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What systems reportedly achieved
The authors report that agentic search did not outperform embedding retrieval on their task, although the agentic approach called that same retriever as a tool. They also report a 0.51 Recall@20 result for an agent built on Claude Fable 5.1, which they say may have encountered the completed papers during training. These figures are bounded to this benchmark: the supplied record does not specify the sample-selection and author-annotation limitations needed to judge representativeness, and it does not provide enough detail to assess configurations, uncertainty, contamination controls, or reproducibility. [1]
- Agentic search: 0.42 Recall@20.
- Embedding retrieval: 0.48 Recall@20.
- An agent built on Claude Fable 5.1: 0.51 Recall@20.
05
Status and primary source
ScholarCatalyst is documented in the supplied material as an arXiv preprint. The primary record contains the abstract, submission information, and the authors’ reported figures, but does not itself show external validation. The primary source is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02202v1. [1]
- arXiv lists the paper in Artificial Intelligence, with additional Computation and Language and Information Retrieval subjects.
- The record lists version 1 as submitted on 1 October 2026.
- arXiv lists the manuscript as 57 pages.
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How to use this result
Treat ScholarCatalyst as a preprint describing one benchmark, not as a validated ranking of literature-search products or a general measure of scientific reasoning.
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Use the reported Recall@20 figures only for the task and benchmark described by the authors.
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Read the full preprint before comparing systems: the supplied record does not establish the detailed configurations, score definition beyond Recall@20, or statistical uncertainty.
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Do not infer peer review, independent replication, or public release of data and code from the arXiv record. [1]
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Limits of this edition
The supplied record identifies ScholarCatalyst as arXiv version 1. It does not establish peer review, venue acceptance, or independent evaluation. [1]
The evidence does not establish the full evaluation protocol, system configurations, score definition beyond Recall@20, or statistical uncertainty. [1]
The selection and representativeness of the 207 recent computer-science projects are not specified in the supplied record. That leaves it unclear how far results may generalize beyond this benchmark sample. [1]
The supplied record does not detail limitations of the author-annotation process, beyond saying that an automated pipeline made that process scalable. [1]
The supplied material does not confirm public availability of the data, annotations, rationales, code, or evaluation materials. [1]
The record does not resolve what “Claude Fable 5.1” denotes or provide further model documentation. [1]
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