🔬 AI · Information Retrieval · Knowledge Access

Advancing intelligent access to information.

AIRA is a research group focused on intelligent systems for information retrieval and access. Our work covers the design and evaluation of search and recommendation methods, data acquisition and processing, the use of machine learning models for natural language understanding and generation, social network analysis, and the development of explainable and agent-based artificial intelligence systems.

📈 Research Activity 2015–2025

A decade of research impact

Between 2015 and 2025, AIRA has consolidated an active international research profile with significant scientific production, competitive projects, and doctoral training in information retrieval, recommendation systems, natural language processing, and explainable AI.

76

JCR journal articles

101

International conferences

23

Research projects

16

Technology transfer projects

12

PhD dissertations

Research Areas

AIRA develops advanced methods and intelligent systems for information access, recommendation, language technologies, social data analysis, and explainable AI.

🔎

Information Retrieval

Design and evaluation of intelligent retrieval systems, semantic search, ranking methods, and interactive access to large-scale information collections.

🎯

Recommender Systems

Personalized recommendation models for multimedia, educational, and online platforms using collaborative, content-based, and hybrid approaches.

💬

Natural Language Processing

Machine learning and large language model techniques for text understanding, generation, conversational systems, and multilingual applications.

🌐

Social Network Analysis

Analysis of online communities, information diffusion, user behavior, and interaction patterns in digital social environments.

🧩

Explainable and Agent-Based AI

Transparent and interpretable AI systems, autonomous agents, and trustworthy machine learning for decision support and human-AI interaction.

Research Team

AIRA brings together researchers and collaborators in information retrieval, recommender systems, natural language processing, and explainable artificial intelligence.

Professors

AB
Associate Professor (coordinator)

Alejandro Bellogín Kouki

IC
Associate Professor (coordinator)

Iván Cantador Gutiérrez

FD
Associate Professor

Fernando Díez Rubio

LQ
Associate Professor

Lara Quijano Sánchez

JJ
Assistant Professor

José Luis Jorro Aragoneses

IS
Assistant Professor

Ilia Stepin

External Researchers

PS
Universidad Pontificia de Comillas

Pablo Sánchez Pérez

FL
Cardiff University

Federico Liberatore

PM
Axel Springer National Media & Tech

Pablo Mateos Masa

Recent Publications

Selected publications from conferences and journals in information retrieval, machine learning, and human-centered AI.

Analysing the Effect of Recommendation Algorithms on the Spread of Misinformation

M Fernández, A Bellogín, I Cantador · 16th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci 2024)

Recommendation fairness in e-participation: Listening to minority, vulnerable and NIMBY citizens

M Alonso-Cortés, I Cantador, A Bellogín · 46th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2024)

A Conversational Agent for Argument-driven E-participation

A Segura-Tinoco, A Holgado-Sánchez, I Cantador, ME Cortés-Cediel, MP Rodríguez Bolívar · 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2022)

Point of Interest Recommendation: Pitfalls and Research Directions

A Bellogin, L Dietz, F Ricci, P Sánchez · ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems

The role of recommendation algorithms in the formation of disinformation networks

P Muñoz, R Barba-Rojas, F Díez, A Bellogín · Information Processing & Management 62 (6), 104243

Impacts of Mainstream-Driven Algorithms on Recommendations for Children Across Domains: A Reproducibility Study

R Ungruh, A Bellogín, D Kowald, MS Pera · Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 783-791

Smart imputation, better recommendations: Improving traditional point-of-interest recommendation through data augmentation

P Sánchez, A Bellogín · ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology 16 (4), 1-35

Improving Novelty and Diversity of Nearest-Neighbors Recommendation by Exploiting Dissimilarities

P Sánchez, J Sanz-Cruzado, A Bellogín · European Conference on Information Retrieval, 187-196

Context Trails: A Dataset to Study Contextual and Route Recommendation

P Sánchez, A Bellogin, JL Jorro-Aragoneses · Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 716-725

Modeling disinformation networks on Twitter: structure, behavior, and impact

P Muñoz, F Díez, A Bellogín · Applied Network Science 9 (1), 1-35

Quantifying polarization in online political discourse

P Muñoz, A Bellogín, R Barba-Rojas, F Díez · EPJ Data Science 13 (1), 39

Hate speech on Twitter: Profiling users and interaction analysis in the Spanish language

I Ramiro-López, L Quijano-Sánchez, F Liberatore · Natural Language Processing, 1-48

AGORA: An intelligent system for the anonymization, information extraction and automatic mapping of sensitive documents

R Juez-Hernandez, L Quijano-Sánchez, F Liberatore, J Gómez · Applied Soft Computing 145, 110540

Towards social fairness in smart policing: Leveraging territorial, racial, and workload fairness in the police districting problem

F Liberatore, M Camacho-Collados, L Quijano-Sánchez · Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 87, 101556

A software solution for building fuzzy-grounded interactive dialogue-based explanations

I Stepin, A Catala, JM Alonso-Moral · 2024 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), 1-8

Information-seeking dialogue for explainable artificial intelligence: Modelling and analytics

I Stepin, K Budzynska, A Catala, M Pereira-Fariña, JM Alonso-Moral · Argument & Computation 15 (1), 49-107

A proof of concept on dialogue games for explainable artificial intelligence

I Stepin, A Catala, JM Alonso-Moral · Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Argumentation 3, 277-290

An empirical study on how humans appreciate automated counterfactual explanations which embrace imprecise information

I Stepin, JM Alonso-Moral, A Catala, M Pereira-Farina · Information Sciences 618, 379-399

Collaborate with AIRA

We are open to academic collaborations, industrial partnerships, and student applications in AI and Information Retrieval.

alejandro.bellogin@uam.es ivan.cantador@uam.es