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A Systematic Literature Review of Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Techniques, Metrics, and Challenges

Created by
  • Haebom

Author

Andrew Brown, Muhammad Roman, Barry Devereux

Outline

This study conducted a systematic literature review of 128 highly cited research papers on augmented search generation (RAG) published from 2020 to May 2025. Data were collected from databases including ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and DBLP and analyzed according to the PRISMA 2020 framework. RAG combines neural network-based retrieval models with generative language models to leverage up-to-date information while preserving semantic generalizations stored in model weights. This study categorizes datasets, architectures, and evaluation methods, and synthesizes empirical evidence on the effectiveness and limitations of RAG to clarify the current state of research, highlight methodological gaps, and suggest directions for future research priorities. For papers published in 2025, we lowered the citation count threshold to include recent, groundbreaking research.

Takeaways, Limitations

Takeaways:
A comprehensive presentation of empirical evidence on the effectiveness and limitations of RAG.
Clarifies the current status and methodological gaps in RAG research.
Suggesting priorities for future RAG research.
Implementing strategies to mitigate citation delay bias (relaxing citation count criteria for papers published in 2025).
Limitations:
Selection is based on the number of citations, so there is a possibility that important research may be missed even if the number of citations is low.
There is a possibility of bias due to searches being limited to specific databases.
The scope of the study is limited to the period from 2020 to May 2025, so it may not fully reflect the latest trends.
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