Selected Publications

Full list see my Google Scholar

* Corresponding author

2026

  1. Have We Really Understood Collaborative Information? An Empirical Investigation
    Xiaokun Zhang, Zhaochun Ren*, Bowei He, Ziqiang Cui, and Chen Ma*
    WSDM, 2026
    PDF

2025

  1. DiffuGR: Generative Document Retrieval with Diffusion Language Models
    Xinpeng Zhao, Zhaochun Ren*, Yukun Zhao, Zhenyang Li, Mengqi Zhang, Jun Feng, Ran Chen, Ying Zhou, Zhumin Chen, Shuaiqiang Wang, Dawei Yin, and Xin Xin*
    Under review, 2025
    PDF
  2. A Token is Worth over 1,000 Tokens: Efficient Knowledge Distillation through Low-Rank Clone
    Jitai Hao, Qiang Huang, Hao Liu, Xinyan Xiao, Zhaochun Ren, and Jun Yu
    NeurIPS, 2025
    PDF
  3. Iterative self-incentivization empowers large language models as agentic searchers
    Zhengliang Shi, Lingyong Yan, Dawei Yin, Suzan Verberne, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    NeurIPS, 2025
    PDF
  4. Constrained Auto-Regressive Decoding Constrains Generative Retrieval
    Shiguang Wu, Zhaochun Ren*, Xin Xin, Jiyuan Yang, Mengqi Zhang, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Pengjie Ren
    SIGIR, 2025
    PDF
  5. Replication and Exploration of Generative Retrieval over Dynamic Corpora
    Zhen Zhang, Xinyu Ma, Weiwei Sun, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Shuaiqiang Wang, Dawei Yin, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    SIGIR, 2025
    PDF
  6. Improving sequential recommenders through counterfactual augmentation of system exposure
    Ziqi Zhao, Zhaochun Ren*, Jiyuan Yang, Zuming Yan, Zihan Wang, Liu Yang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Xin Xin
    SIGIR, 2025
    PDF
  7. Enhancing RAG Efficiency with Adaptive Context Compression
    Shuyu Guo, Shuo Zhang, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2025
    PDF
  8. Bridging the Capability Gap: Joint Alignment Tuning for Harmonizing LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems
    Minghang Zhu, Zhengliang Shi, Zhiwei Xu, Shiguang Wu, Lingjie Wang, Pengjie Ren, Zhaochun Ren*, and Zhumin Chen
    EMNLP, 2025
    PDF
  9. Fine-Grained Emotion Recognition via In-Context Learning
    Zhaochun Ren, Zhou Yang, Chenglong Ye, Haizhou Sun, Chao Chen, Xiaofei Zhu, and Xiangwen Liao
    CIKM, 2025
    PDF
  10. Model Meets Knowledge: Analyzing Knowledge Types for Conversational Recommender Systems
    Jujia Zhao, Yumeng Wang, Zhaochun Ren, and Suzan Verberne
    RecSys, 2025
    PDF
  11. Offline trajectory generalization for offline reinforcement learning
    Ziqi Zhao, Zhaochun Ren, Liu Yang, Fajie Yuan, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, and Xin Xin
    SIGKDD, 2025
    PDF
  12. Retrieval Models Aren’t Tool-Savvy: Benchmarking Tool Retrieval for Large Language Models
    Zhengliang Shi, Yuhan Wang, Lingyong Yan, Pengjie Ren, Shuaiqiang Wang, Dawei Yin, and Zhaochun Ren*
    Findings of ACL, 2025
    PDF
  13. Task Knowledge Injection via Interpolations and Reinstatement for Large Language Model Generalization
    Yukun Zhao, Lingyong Yan, Zhenyang Li, Shuaiqiang Wang, Zhumin Chen, Zhaochun Ren*, and Dawei Yin
    Findings of ACL, 2025
    PDF
  14. Tool learning in the wild: Empowering language models as automatic tool agents
    Zhengliang Shi, Shen Gao, Lingyong Yan, Yue Feng, Xiuyi Chen, Zhumin Chen, Dawei Yin, Suzan Verberne, and Zhaochun Ren*
    The Web Conference, 2025
    PDF
  15. A cooperative multi-agent framework for zero-shot named entity recognition
    Zihan Wang, Ziqi Zhao, Yougang Lyu, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    The Web Conference, 2025
    PDF
  16. MACPO: weak-to-strong alignment via multi-agent contrastive preference optimization
    Yougang Lyu, Lingyong Yan, Zihan Wang, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ICLR, 2025
    PDF
  17. ZeroGR: A Generalizable and Scalable Framework for Zero-Shot Generative Retrieval
    Weiwei Sun, Keyi Kong, Xinyu Ma, Shuaiqiang Wang, Dawei Yin, Maarten Rijke, Zhaochun Ren*, and Yiming Yang
    Under review, 2025
    PDF
  18. DeepShop: A Benchmark for Deep Research Shopping Agents
    Yougang Lyu, Xiaoyu Zhang, Lingyong Yan, Maarten Rijke, Zhaochun Ren*, and Xiuying Chen*
    Under review, 2025
    PDF

2024

  1. Towards empathetic conversational recommender systems,
    (Best Full Paper Award)
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Ruobing Xie, Yougang Lyu, Xin Xin, Pengjie Ren, Mingfei Liang, Bo Zhang, Zhanhui Kang, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    RecSys, 2024
    PDF
  2. Learning to use tools via cooperative and interactive agents
    Zhengliang Shi, Shen Gao, Xiuyi Chen, Yue Feng, Lingyong Yan, Haibo Shi, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Suzan Verberne, and Zhaochun Ren*
    Findings of EMNLP, 2024
    PDF
  3. MAIR: A massive benchmark for evaluating instructed retrieval
    Weiwei Sun, Zhengliang Shi, Wu Jiu Long, Lingyong Yan, Xinyu Ma, Yiding Liu, Min Cao, Dawei Yin, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2024
    PDF
  4. Knowtuning: Knowledge-aware fine-tuning for large language models
    Yougang Lyu, Lingyong Yan, Shuaiqiang Wang, Haibo Shi, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2024
    PDF
  5. Content-based collaborative generation for recommender systems
    Yidan Wang, Zhaochun Ren, Weiwei Sun, Jiyuan Yang, Zhixiang Liang, Xin Chen, Ruobing Xie, Su Yan, Xu Zhang, Pengjie Ren, and Xin Xin
    CIKM, 2024
    PDF
  6. Improving the robustness of large language models via consistency alignment
    Yukun Zhao, Lingyong Yan, Weiwei Sun, Guoliang Xing, Shuaiqiang Wang, Chong Meng, Zhicong Cheng, Zhaochun Ren, and Dawei Yin
    COLING, 2024
    PDF
  7. An iterative associative memory model for empathetic response generation
    Zhou Yang, Zhaochun Ren, Wang Yufeng, Haizhou Sun, Chao Chen, Xiaofei Zhu, and Xiangwen Liao
    ACL, 2024
    PDF
  8. Generate-then-ground in retrieval-augmented generation for multi-hop question answering
    Zhengliang Shi, Shuo Zhang, Weiwei Sun, Shen Gao, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACL, 2024
    PDF
  9. MEFT: Memory-efficient fine-tuning through sparse adapter
    Jitai Hao, Weiwei Sun, Xin Xin, Qi Meng, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACL, 2024
    PDF
  10. CAUSE: Counterfactual assessment of user satisfaction estimation in task-oriented dialogue systems
    Amin Abolghasemi, Zhaochun Ren, Arian Askari, Mohammad Aliannejadi, Maarten Rijke, and Suzan Verberne
    Findings of ACL, 2024
    PDF
  11. Disentangling id and modality effects for session-based recommendation
    Xiaokun Zhang, Bo Xu, Zhaochun Ren, Xiaochen Wang, Hongfei Lin, and Fenglong Ma
    SIGIR, 2024
    PDF
  12. Generative retrieval as multi-vector dense retrieval,
    (Best Full Paper Runner Up Award)
    Shiguang Wu, Wenda Wei, Mengqi Zhang, Zhumin Chen, Jun Ma, Zhaochun Ren, Maarten Rijke, and Pengjie Ren
    SIGIR, 2024
    PDF
  13. Information Discovery in E-commerce
    Zhaochun Ren, Xiangnan He, Dawei Yin, and Maarten de Rijke
    Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval, 2024
    PDF
  14. Generative news recommendation
    Shen Gao, Jiabao Fang, Quan Tu, Zhitao Yao, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren, and Zhaochun Ren*
    The Web Conference, 2024
    PDF
  15. Answer retrieval in legal community question answering
    Arian Askari, Zihui Yang, Zhaochun Ren, and Suzan Verberne
    ECIR, 2024
    PDF
  16. Debiasing Sequential Recommenders through Distributionally Robust Optimization over System Exposure,
    (Best Full Paper Runner Up Award)
    Jiyuan Yang, Yue Ding, Yidan Wang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Fei Cai, Jun Ma, Rui Zhang, Zhaochun Ren, and Xin Xin
    WSDM, 2024
    PDF
  17. On the effectiveness of unlearning in session-based recommendation
    Xin Xin, Liu Yang, Ziqi Zhao, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Jun Ma, and Zhaochun Ren*
    WSDM, 2024
    PDF
  18. Knowing what llms do not know: A simple yet effective self-detection method
    Yukun Zhao, Lingyong Yan, Weiwei Sun, Guoliang Xing, Chong Meng, Shuaiqiang Wang, Zhicong Cheng, Zhaochun Ren*, and Dawei Yin
    2024
    PDF
  19. Confucius: Iterative tool learning from introspection feedback by easy-to-difficult curriculum
    Shen Gao, Zhengliang Shi, Minghang Zhu, Bowen Fang, Xin Xin, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Jun Ma, and Zhaochun Ren*
    AAAI, 2024
    PDF
  20. Graph-enhanced prompt learning for cross-domain contract element extraction
    Zihan Wang, Hanbing Wang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACM TOIS, 2024
    PDF

2023

  1. Learning to Tokenize for Generative Retrieval
    Weiwei Sun, Lingyong Yan, Zheng Chen, Shuaiqiang Wang, Haichao Zhu, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Dawei Yin, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    NeurIPS, 2023
    PDF
  2. Is ChatGPT Good at Search? Investigating Large Language Models as Re-Ranking Agent,
    (Outstanding Paper Award)
    Weiwei Sun, Lingyong Yan, Xinyu Ma, Pengjie Ren, Dawei Yin, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  3. Multi-Defendant Legal Judgment Prediction via Hierarchical Reasoning
    Yougang Lyu, Jitai Hao, Zihan Wang, Kai Zhao, Shen Gao, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Fang Wang, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  4. Generalizing Few-Shot Named Entity Recognizers to Unseen Domains with Type-Related Features
    Zihan Wang, Ziqi Zhao, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  5. Towards a Unified Framework for Reference Retrieval and Related Work Generation
    Zhengliang Shi, Shen Gao, Zhen Zhang, Xiuying Chen, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren, and Zhaochun Ren*
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  6. DiQAD: A Benchmark Dataset for Open-domain Dialogue Quality Assessment
    Yukun Zhao, Lingyong Yan, Weiwei Sun, Chong Meng, Shuaiqiang Wang, Zhicong Cheng, Zhaochun Ren*, and Dawei Yin
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  7. Exploiting Emotion-Semantic Correlations for Empathetic Response Generation
    Zhou Yang, Zhaochun Ren, Yufeng Wang, Xiaofei Zhu, Zhihao Chen, Tiecheng Cai, Yunbing Wu, Yisong Su, Sibo Ju Ju, and Xiangwen Liao
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  8. Syllogistic Reasoning for Legal Judgment Analysis
    Wentao Deng, Jiahuan Pei, Keyi Kong, Zhe Chen, Furu Wei, Yujun Li, Zhaochun Ren, Zhumin Chen, and Pengjie Ren
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  9. Multi-Source Multi-Type Knowledge Exploration and Exploitation for Dialogue Generation
    Xuanfan Ni, Hongliang Dai, Zhaochun Ren, and Piji Li
    EMNLP, 2023
    PDF
  10. Iteratively Learning Representations for Unseen Entities with Inter-Rule Correlations
    Zihan Wang, Kai Zhao, Yongquan He, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    CIKM, 2023
    PDF
  11. Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning via Disentanglement
    Wenjie Zhou, Piji Li, Zhaoyang Han, Xiaozhen Lu, Juan Li, Zhaochun Ren, and Zhe Liu
    CIKM, 2023
    PDF
  12. RADE: Reference-Assisted Dialogue Evaluation for Open-Domain Dialogue
    Zhengliang Shi, Weiwei Sun, Shuo Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Pengjie Ren, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACL, 2023
    PDF
  13. Answering Ambiguous Questions via Iterative Prompting
    Weiwei Sun, Hengyi Cai, Hongshen Chen, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACL, 2023
    PDF
  14. UMSE: Unified Multi-scenario Summarization Evaluation
    Shen Gao, Zhitao Yao, Chongyang Tao, Xiuying Chen, Pengjie Ren, Zhaochun Ren, and Zhumin Chen
    ACL, 2023
    PDF
  15. Towards Explainable Conversational Recommender Systems
    Shuyu Guo, Shuo Zhang, Weiwei Sun, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, and Zhaochun Ren*
    SIGIR, 2023
    PDF
  16. Contrastive State Augmentations for Reinforcement Learning-Based Recommender Systems.
    Zhaochun Ren, Na Huang, Yidan Wang, Pengjie Ren, Ma Jun, Jiahuan Lei, Xinlei Shi, Hengliang Luo, Joemon M. Jose, and Xin Xin
    SIGIR, 2023
    PDF
  17. Improving Implicit Feedback-Based Recommendation through Multi-Behavior Alignment.
    Xin Xin, Xiangyuan Liu, Hanbing Wang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Jiahuan Lei, Xinlei Shi, Hengliang Luo, Joemon M. Jose, Maarten de Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    SIGIR, 2023
    PDF
  18. Feature-Level Debiased Natural Language Understanding.
    Yougang Lyu, Piji Li, Yechang Yang, Maarten de Rijke, Pengjie Ren, Yukun Zhao, Dawei Yin, and Zhaochun Ren*
    AAAI, 2023
    PDF
  19. Contrastive Learning Reduces Hallucination in Conversations.
    Weiwei Sun, Zhengliang Shi, Shen Gao, Pengjie Ren, Maarten de Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    AAAI, 2023
    PDF
  20. Variational Reasoning over Incomplete Knowledge Graphs for Conversational Recommendation.
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Xin Xin, Dongdong Li, Wenxuan Liu, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Jun Ma, and Zhaochun Ren*
    WSDM, 2023
    PDF

2022

  1. Metaphorical User Simulators for Evaluating Task-oriented Dialogue Systems
    Weiwei Sun, Shuyu Guo, Shuo Zhang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten de Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    ACM TOIS, 2022
    PDF
  2. Variational Reasoning about User Preferences for Conversational Recommendation.
    Zhaochun Ren, Zhi Tian, Dongdong Li, Pengjie Ren, Xin Xin, Huasheng Liang, Maarten de Rijke, and Zhumin Chen
    SIGIR, 2022
    PDF
  3. Debiasing Learning for Membership Inference Attacks Against Recommender Systems.
    Zihan Wang, Na Huang, Fei Sun, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Hengliang Luo, Maarten de Rijke, and Zhaochun Ren*
    KDD, 2022
    PDF
  4. Knowledge bridging for empathetic dialogue generation.
    Qintong Li, Piji Li*, Zhaochun Ren*, Pengjie Ren, and Zhumin Chen
    AAAI, 2022
    PDF

2021

  1. Membership Inference Attacks Against Recommender Systems.
    Minxing Zhanag, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren*, Zihan Wang, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Pengfei Hu, and Yang Zhang
    CCS, 2021
    PDF
  2. Semi-Supervised Variational Reasoning for Medical Dialogue Generation.
    Dongdong Li, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren*, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Miao Fan, Jun Ma, and Maarten de Rijke
    SIGIR, 2021
    PDF

2020

  1. EmpDG: Multi-resolution Interactive Empathetic Dialogue Generation.
    Qintong Li, Hongshen Chen, Zhaochun Ren*, Zhumin Chen, Zhaopeng Tu, and Jun Ma
    COLING, 2020
    PDF
  2. Keywords Generation Improves E-Commerce Session-based Recommendation.
    Yuanxing Liu, Zhaochun Ren*, Wanxiang Che, Ting Liu, and Dawei Yin
    The Web Conference, 2020
    PDF
  3. Streaming graph neural networks.
    Yao Ma, Ziyi Guo, Zhaochun Ren, Jiliang Tang, and Dawei Yin
    SIGIR, 2020
    PDF

2019

  1. Robust Embedding with Multi-Level Structures for Link Prediction.
    Zihan Wang, Zhaochun Ren, Chunyu He, Peng Zhang, and Yue Hu
    IJCAI, 2019
    PDF
  2. Taxonomy-aware Multi-hop Reasoning Networks for Sequential Recommendation.
    Jin Huang, Zhaochun Ren, Wayne Xin Zhao, Gaole He, Ji-Rong Wen, and Daxiang Dong
    WSDM, 2019
    PDF

2018

  1. Explicit State Tracking with Semi-Supervision for Neural Dialogue Generation.
    Xisen Jin, Wenqiang Lei, Zhaochun Ren, Hongshen Chen, Shangsong Liang, Yihong Eric Zhao, and Dawei Yin
    CIKM, 2018
    PDF
  2. Sequicity: Simplifying Task-oriented Dialogue Systems with Single Sequence-to-Sequence Architectures.
    Wenqiang Lei, Xisen Jin, Zhaochun Ren, Xiangnan He, Min-Yen Kan, and Dawei Yin
    ACL, 2018
    PDF
  3. Knowledge Diffusion for Neural Dialogue Generation.
    Shuman Liu, Hongshen Chen, Zhaochun Ren, Yang Feng, and Dawei Yin
    ACL, 2018
    PDF
  4. Hierarchical Variational Memory Network for Dialogue Generation.
    Hongshen Chen, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren, Jiliang Tang, Yihong Eric Zhao, and Dawei Yin
    WWW, 2018
    PDF
  5. Multi-dimensional network embedding with hierarchical structures.
    Yao Ma, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren, Ziheng Jiang, Jiliang Tang, and Dawei Yin
    WSDM, 2018
    PDF
  6. A Path-constrained Framework for Discriminating Substitutable and Complementary Products in E-commerce.
    (Best Student Paper Award)
    Zihan Wang, Ziheng Jiang, Zhaochun Ren, Jiliang Tang, and Dawei Yin
    WSDM, 2018
    PDF

2017

  1. Neural Attentive Session-based Recommendation.
    (Best Full Paper Runner Up Award)
    Jing Li, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Zhaochun Ren, and Jun Ma
    CIKM, 2017
    PDF
  2. Summarizing Answers in Non-Factoid Community Question-Answering.
    Hongya Song, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren, Shangsong Liang, Piji Li, Jun Ma, and Maarten de Rijke
    WSDM, 2017
    PDF
  3. Social Collaborative Viewpoint Regression with Explainable Recommendations.
    Zhaochun Ren, Shangsong Liang, Piji Li, Shuaiqiang Wang, and Maarten de Rijke
    WSDM, 2017
    PDF

2016

  1. Time-aware Multi-Viewpoint Summarization of Multilingual Social Text Streams.
    Zhaochun Ren, Oana Inel, Lora Aroyo, and Maarten de Rijke
    CIKM, 2016
    PDF
  2. Explainable User Clustering in Short Text Streams.
    Yukun Zhao, Shangsong Liang, Zhaochun (co-first author) Ren, Jun Ma, Emine Yilmaz, and Maarten de Rijke
    SIGIR, 2016
    PDF

2015

  1. Summarizing Contrastive Themes via Hierarchical Non-Parametric Processes.
    Zhaochun Ren, and Maarten de Rijke
    SIGIR, 2015
    PDF

2014

  1. Hierarchical Multi-Label Classification of Social Text Streams.
    Zhaochun Ren, Maria-Hendrike Peetz, Shangsong Liang, Willemijn van Dolen, and Maarten de Rijke
    SIGIR, 2014
    PDF

2013

  1. Personalized Time-aware Tweets Summarization.
    Zhaochun Ren, Shangsong Liang, Edgar Meij, and Maarten de Rijke
    SIGIR, 2013
    PDF

2011

  1. Summarizing web forum threads based on a latent topic propagation process.
    Zhaochun Ren, Jun Ma, Shuaiqiang Wang, and Yang Liu
    CIKM, 2011
    PDF