Important

Official companion repository for Bridging Evolutionary Algorithms and Reinforcement Learning: A Comprehensive Survey on Hybrid Algorithms.
This repository helps readers enter the ERL field faster, reproduce representative methods, navigate the survey taxonomy, and track new papers and code. It currently indexes 270 canonical algorithm works and curates 86 independently reviewed Chinese and English guide mappings across 80 unique URLs, covering 54 works.

Awesome Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning

The research companion for studying, reproducing, and extending ERL

Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (ERL) combines the global search and population diversity of evolutionary algorithms with the learning efficiency and decision-making capabilities of reinforcement learning. Alongside papers and verified code, this collection provides independently reviewed 中文 / English explanations so readers can move quickly from the survey taxonomy to understanding, reproducing, and extending representative methods.

Read the survey · Browse the taxonomy · 中文 / English reading guides · Start from code · See recent work

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Overview

3 major directions	21 maintained branches	270 canonical algorithm works	80 with verified public code
EA → RL · RL → EA · Synergy	Survey branches plus maintained extensions	264 taxonomy works + 6 recent works	Canonical works with an exact code match

_{Reproducible count policy (30 Aug 2026): one canonical work equals one unique paper record, regardless of aliases, variants, or cross-listings. The 270 total excludes tooling/benchmarks, field overviews, and the independent watchlist. Code coverage counts canonical works with an exact author/official or explicitly labeled community implementation.}

Important

Which survey version should you use? Cite the IEEE version of record, read arXiv v5 for the latest paper content, and use this repository for code and ongoing updates. See the exact differences ↓

Choose a direction

01 · EA assists RL	02 · RL assists EA	03 · EA and RL collaborate
Evolution searches policies, actions, hyperparameters, curricula, or reward structures for RL.	RL configures initialization, evaluation, variation, operator selection, and EA hyperparameters.	Population search and gradient learning exchange information or optimize jointly.
Explore EA-assisted RL ↓	Explore RL-assisted EA ↓	Explore synergistic ERL ↓

Quick paths

Need reproducible baselines? Start from the code-first list and frameworks.
Need an explanation first? Start from the integrated bilingual reading-guide overview, then open the full work-by-work guide when you need a specific method.
Tracking the newest work? Go to recent and emerging directions.

Note

Code labels: repository links are author-maintained unless explicitly marked as a community implementation. Not found means no verified public implementation was located. Some methods are intentionally cross-listed when one mechanism contributes to multiple branches.

Changelog

• 30 Aug 2026 — completed a multi-scope coverage adjudication: added 120 canonical works, expanded the collection to 270 papers and 80 verified code artifacts, corrected QD-PG metadata, and retained 14 independently tracked boundary items in a non-counting watchlist.
• 29 Aug 2026 — refined the bilingual reading guide to 86 verified work-link mappings across 54 works after a stricter mechanism-depth audit removed mismatched and installation-only references.
• 28 Aug 2026 — synchronized the collection with arXiv v5; added Reward Design, Dynamic Operator Selection, missing QD methods, recent 2024–2026 work, verified code repositories, frameworks, and updated taxonomy figures.
• 26 Jul 2024 — the survey was accepted by IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.

Full section index

• Overview
• Bilingual reading guides
• Taxonomy
• Survey versions
• Code-first reading list
• EA-assisted Optimization of RL
  • EA-assisted Parameter Search
  • EA-assisted Action Selection
  • Hyperparameter Optimization
  • Algorithm and Update-rule Discovery
  • Other EA-assisted RL methods
• RL-assisted Optimization of EA
  • Population Initialization
  • Population Evaluation
  • Variation Operator
  • Quality-Diversity
  • Dynamic Operator Selection
  • Dynamic Algorithm Configuration
  • Dynamic Resource Allocation
  • Other RL-assisted EA methods
• Synergistic Optimization of EA and RL
  • Single-Agent Optimization
  • Adaptive, Staged, or Stabilized Coupling
  • Representation and Search Decomposition
  • Multi-Agent Optimization
  • Reward Design
  • Morphological Evolution
  • Interpretable AI
  • Learning Classifier Systems
• Frameworks, benchmarks, and tooling
• Recent and emerging directions
• Related surveys
• Contributing
• Citation

Bilingual reading guides

The reading guide is integrated into this repository as a second layer over the survey taxonomy: use the compact paths below to enter a direction quickly, then open the complete work-by-work guide for all reviewed resources.

270 works reviewed	54 works covered	27 with Chinese material	45 with English material	86 verified mappings
Full collection	At least one guide	中文讲解	English guides	80 unique URLs

Core marks substantial, work-specific explanations. Extended marks concise but mechanism-bearing overview sections, project documentation, thesis chapters, posters, or talk slides. Installation-only repositories, abstract restatements, and references that merely mention a method are excluded.

Guide coverage and mapping counts are deduplicated by canonical paper/work URL, language, guide URL, and Core/Extended label; aliases and cross-lists do not add mappings.

Research direction	Coverage	Suggested starting points
EA assists RL	13 / 47 works	PBT · English · Go-Explore · 中文 · Qt-Opt · English
RL assists EA	15 / 105 works	DeepACO · 中文 · LOOP · English · TD-MPC · 中文
EA and RL collaborate	23 / 112 works	RACE · 中文 · Eureka · English · ROSKA · 中文
Recent directions	3 / 6 works	Follow verified projects and author material in the full guide.

Browse the complete bilingual guide →

Taxonomy

Survey v5 organizes ERL into three major directions and sixteen research branches. The maintained repository uses twenty-one branches after adding five evidence-backed extensions: algorithm/update-rule discovery, quality-diversity, dynamic resource allocation, adaptive/staged/stabilized coupling, and representation/search decomposition.

_{Figure 1. Taxonomy of evolutionary reinforcement learning in survey v5.}

Note

Survey v5 Table V and the body text additionally include LERO under Reward Design and discuss XCSRG alongside XCSG. The detailed tables below follow the more complete body and tabular taxonomy.

_{Figure 2. Four integration patterns connecting EA and RL across solution and decomposed problem spaces.}

Survey versions

Version	Status and recommended use
Official published version	IEEE TEVC, Vol. 29, No. 5, pp. 1707–1728, 2025 · DOI The peer-reviewed version of record. Use it for formal citation.
Current paper version	arXiv v5, revised 24 May 2026 · PDF The author-updated manuscript with expanded method coverage. Use it for the latest survey content.
Current repository version	Synced 30 Aug 2026 with v5, multi-scope coverage adjudication, verified code links, frameworks, and a separately counted watchlist. Use it for implementation and tracking.

Difference at a glance: IEEE = archival citation · arXiv v5 = latest paper content · GitHub = maintained implementation index

The repository includes code availability, tooling, and newer work that should not be treated as part of the archival IEEE article.

Paper: Bridging Evolutionary Algorithms and Reinforcement Learning: A Comprehensive Survey on Hybrid Algorithms — Pengyi Li, Jianye Hao, Hongyao Tang, Xian Fu, Yan Zheng, and Ke Tang.

Code-first reading list

The following papers have public implementations verified against the paper, project page, or authors' repositories and are useful starting points. Community reimplementations are kept out of this short list and labeled explicitly in the full taxonomy.

Verified code-first collection (31 entries)

Direction	Method	Paper	Code	Guide
EA-assisted RL	SAC-CEPO	Soft Actor-Critic with Cross-Entropy Policy Optimization	wcgcyx/SAC-CEPO	Not found
EA-assisted RL	GRAC	GRAC: Self-Guided and Self-Regularized Actor-Critic	stanford-iprl-lab/GRAC	EN · Extended
EA-assisted RL	OMAR	Plan Better Amid Conservatism: Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Actor Rectification	ling-pan/OMAR	Not found
EA-assisted RL	SEARL	Sample-Efficient Automated Deep Reinforcement Learning	automl/SEARL	EN · Extended
EA-assisted RL	Evolving RL Algorithms	Evolving Reinforcement Learning Algorithms	google/brain_autorl	EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Core
EA-assisted RL	Go-Explore	Go-Explore: a New Approach for Hard-Exploration Problems	uber-research/go-explore	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
EA-assisted RL	ROMANCE	Robust Multi-Agent Coordination via Evolutionary Generation of Auxiliary Adversarial Attackers	zzq-bot/ROMANCE	Not found
EA-assisted RL	EvIL	Evolution Strategies for Generalisable Imitation Learning	SilviaSapora/evil	EN · Extended
RL-assisted EA	DeepACO	DeepACO: Neural-Enhanced Ant Systems for Combinatorial Optimization	henry-yeh/DeepACO	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN · Extended
RL-assisted EA	CEM-RL	Combining Evolutionary and Gradient-Based Methods for Policy Search	apourchot/CEM-RL	中文 · Extended EN · Extended
RL-assisted EA	PGA-ME	Policy Gradient Assisted MAP-Elites	ollebompa/PGA-MAP-Elites	EN · Extended
RL-assisted EA	CMA-MEGA	Approximating Gradients for Differentiable Quality Diversity in Reinforcement Learning	icaros-usc/dqd-rl	EN 1 · Extended EN 2 · Extended
RL-assisted EA	CCQD	Sample-Efficient Quality-Diversity by Cooperative Coevolution	lamda-bbo/CCQD	Not found
RL-assisted EA	RefQD	Quality-Diversity with Limited Resources	lamda-bbo/RefQD	EN · Extended
RL-assisted EA	Wuji	Automatic Online Combat Game Testing Using Evolutionary Deep Reinforcement Learning	NeteaseFuxiRL/wuji	中文 · Core
Synergistic	ERL	Evolution-Guided Policy Gradient in Reinforcement Learning	ShawK91/Evolutionary-Reinforcement-Learning	EN 1 · Extended EN 2 · Extended
Synergistic	CERL	Collaborative Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	intel/cerl	EN · Core
Synergistic	PDERL	Proximal Distilled Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	crisbodnar/pderl	中文 · Extended
Synergistic	ERL-Re2	ERL-Re^2: Efficient Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Shared State Representation and Individual Policy Representation	yeshenpy/ERL-Re2	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Synergistic	VEB-RL	Value-Evolutionary-Based Reinforcement Learning	yeshenpy/VEB-RL	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Synergistic	EvoRainbow	EvoRainbow: Combining Improvements in Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Policy Search	yeshenpy/EvoRainbow	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Synergistic	RACE	RACE: Improve Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Representation Asymmetry and Collaborative Evolution	yeshenpy/RACE	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Synergistic	CORE	CORE: Collaborative Optimization with Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Algorithm for Floorplanning	yeshenpy/CORE	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Reward design	Eureka	Human-Level Reward Design via Coding Large Language Models	eureka-research/Eureka	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
Reward design	DrEureka	Language Model Guided Sim-to-Real Transfer	eureka-research/dreureka	EN · Extended
Reward design	LaRes	LaRes: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with LLM-Based Adaptive Reward Search	yeshenpy/LaRes	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Morphology	EvoGym	Evolution Gym: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Evolving Soft Robots	EvolutionGym/evogym	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
Morphology	HERD	Leveraging Hyperbolic Embeddings for Coarse-to-Fine Robot Design	drdh/HERD	EN · Extended
Morphology	AIEA	Rapidly Evolving Soft Robots via Action Inheritance	HandingWangXDGroup/AIEA	Not found
Morphology	DERL	Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolution	agrimgupta92/derl	中文 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
Morphology	TAME	Task-Agnostic Morphology Evolution	jhejna/morphology-opt	Not found

EA-assisted Optimization of RL

EA → RL · Evolutionary search supports reinforcement learning while RL remains responsible for solving the task.

↑ Overview · Next: RL-assisted EA →

EA-assisted Parameter Search

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
EQ	Reinforcement Learning Beyond the Bellman Equation: Exploring Critic Objectives Using Evolution	ALIFE 2020	ajleite/RLBeyondBellman	Not found
Supe-RL	Genetic Soft Updates for Policy Evolution in Deep Reinforcement Learning	ICLR 2021	Not found	EN · Core 中文 · Extended
VFS	Improving Deep Policy Gradients with Value Function Search	ICLR 2023	Not found	Not found

EA-assisted Action Selection

Browse all 11 methods

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
Qt-Opt	Scalable Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Manipulation	CoRL 2018	community reimplementation	中文 · Core EN · Core
CGP	Q-Learning for Continuous Actions with Cross-Entropy Guided Policies	ICML RL4RealLife 2019	Not found	Not found
EAS-RL	Evolutionary Action Selection for Gradient-Based Policy Learning	ICONIP 2022	Not found	Not found
SAC-CEPO	Soft Actor-Critic with Cross-Entropy Policy Optimization	Preprint 2021	wcgcyx/SAC-CEPO	Not found
GRAC	Self-Guided and Self-Regularized Actor-Critic	CoRL 2021	stanford-iprl-lab/GRAC	EN · Extended
OMAR	Plan Better Amid Conservatism: Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Actor Rectification	ICML 2022	ling-pan/OMAR	Not found
COMIX	Deep Multi-Agent RL for Decentralized Continuous Cooperative Control	Preprint 2020	oxwhirl/comix	Not found
NichGP-DRL	Niching Genetic Programming to Learn Actions for Deep Reinforcement Learning in Dynamic Flexible Scheduling	IEEE TEVC 2026 · early access 2024	MengXu95/NichGPDRL	Not found
ERL-A2S	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Action Sequence Search for Imperfect Information Games	Information Sciences 2024	Not found	Not found
QD-ASE	Quality-Diversity Driven Action Swarm Evolution in Reinforcement Learning	IJCNN 2025	Not found	Not found
ERL-MPP	ERL-MPP: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Multi-head Puzzle Perception for Solving Large-scale Jigsaw Puzzles of Eroded Gaps	AAAI 2025	Not found	Not found

Hyperparameter Optimization

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
OMPAC	Online Meta-Learning by Parallel Algorithm Competition	GECCO 2018	Not found	Not found
PBT	Population Based Training of Neural Networks	Preprint 2017	Not found	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
SEARL	Sample-Efficient Automated Deep Reinforcement Learning	ICLR 2021	automl/SEARL	EN · Extended
GA-DRL	GA+DDPG+HER: Genetic Algorithm-Based Function Optimizer in Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Manipulation Tasks	IEEE IRC 2022	aralab-unr/ga-drl-aubo-ara-lab	Not found
AAC	Towards Automatic Actor-Critic Solutions to Continuous Control	Preprint 2021	jakegrigsby/deep_control	Not found
OHT-ES	Online Hyper-Parameter Tuning in Off-Policy Learning via Evolutionary Strategies	Preprint 2020	Not found	Not found
Adaptive HPO-ERL	Adaptive Optimization of Hyper-Parameters for Robotic Manipulation through Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
BiERL	BiERL: A Meta Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Framework via Bilevel Optimization	ECAI 2023	Not found	Not found
Evolved Meta-Parameters	Evolution of Meta-Parameters in Reinforcement Learning Algorithm	IROS 2003	Not found	Not found

Algorithm and Update-rule Discovery

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
DQNClipped / DQNReg	Evolving Reinforcement Learning Algorithms	ICLR 2021	google/brain_autorl	EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Core
LPO	Discovered Policy Optimisation	NeurIPS 2022	luchris429/discovered-policy-optimisation	中文 · Extended
TA-LPG / TA-LPO	Discovering Temporally-Aware RL Algorithms	ICLR 2024	EmptyJackson/groove	Not found
LLM RL Algorithm Discovery	Evolutionary Discovery of Reinforcement Learning Algorithms via Large Language Models	GECCO 2026, pp. 348–355	Not found	Not found
LLM Multiagent Algorithm Discovery	Discovering Multiagent Learning Algorithms with Large Language Models	AAMAS 2026	Not found	Not found
EPG	Evolved Policy Gradients	NeurIPS 2018	openai/EPG	Not found

Other EA-assisted RL methods

Browse all 18 methods

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
GP-MAXQ	Evolutionary Development of Hierarchical Learning Structures	IEEE TEVC 2007	Not found	EN · Extended
PNS-RL	PNS: Population-Guided Novelty Search for Reinforcement Learning in Hard Exploration Environments	IROS 2021	Not found	Not found
Go-Explore	Go-Explore: a New Approach for Hard-Exploration Problems	arXiv 2019, rev. 2021	uber-research/go-explore	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
G2N	Genetic-Gated Networks for Deep Reinforcement Learning	NeurIPS 2018	Not found	Not found
EVO-RL	Evolutionary-Driven Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2021	Not found	Not found
ROMANCE	Robust Multi-Agent Coordination via Evolutionary Generation of Auxiliary Adversarial Attackers	AAAI 2023	zzq-bot/ROMANCE	Not found
MA3C	Communication-robust multi-agent learning by adaptable auxiliary multi-agent adversary generation	Frontiers of Computer Science 2024	Not found	中文 · Extended
EPC	Evolutionary Population Curriculum for Scaling Multi-Agent RL	ICLR 2020	qian18long/epciclr2020	EN · Extended
MAPPER	MAPPER: Multi-Agent Path Planning with Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning in Mixed Dynamic Environments	IROS 2020	Not found	中文 · Extended
EvIL	Evolution Strategies for Generalisable Imitation Learning	ICML 2024	SilviaSapora/evil	EN · Extended
Behaviour Distillation (HaDES)	Behaviour Distillation	ICLR 2024	FLAIROx/behaviour-distillation	Not found
Adversarial Cheap Talk (ACT)	Adversarial Cheap Talk	ICML 2023	luchris429/adversarial-cheap-talk	Not found
GP Offline Data	Using genetic programming to improve data collection for offline reinforcement learning	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2025	Not found	Not found
EDT Curriculum Goals	Hindsight Experience Replay with Evolutionary Decision Trees for Curriculum Goal Generation	EvoApplications 2024	Not found	Not found
GA Offline Dataset Reduction	Dataset Reduction for Offline Reinforcement Learning using Genetic Algorithms with Image-Based Heuristics	GECCO 2025	Not found	Not found
AEIRL	Adaptive Evolutionary Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Large-Scale Interconnected Systems	Neurocomputing 2026	Not found	Not found
ES-KD-MARL	Evolutionary Sampling for Knowledge Distillation in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	Mathematics 2025	Not found	Not found
E2CL	Efficient Evolutionary Curriculum Learning for Scalable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	Journal of King Saud University: Computer and Information Sciences 2025	Not found	Not found

RL-assisted Optimization of EA

RL → EA · Reinforcement learning configures or improves one or more stages of an evolutionary algorithm.

← EA-assisted RL · ↑ Overview · Next: Synergistic ERL →

Population Initialization

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
NGGP	Symbolic Regression via Neural-Guided Genetic Programming Population Seeding	NeurIPS 2021	dso-org/deep-symbolic-optimization	EN · Extended
RL-guided GA	Rule-Based Reinforcement Learning Methodology to Inform Evolutionary Algorithms for Constrained Optimization of Engineering Applications	Knowledge-Based Systems 2021	aims-umich/neorl	Not found
DeepACO	DeepACO: Neural-Enhanced Ant Systems for Combinatorial Optimization	NeurIPS 2023	henry-yeh/DeepACO	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN · Extended

Population Evaluation

This branch contains seven primary RL-assisted evaluation works plus three secondary mechanism cross-lists. SC, PGPS, and ERL-Re2 remain counted only under their synergistic canonical branches.

Method	Paper	Venue / primary listing	Code	Guide
SC	A Surrogate-Assisted Controller for Expensive Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	Single-Agent Optimization	Yuxing-Wang-THU/Surrogate-assisted-ERL	中文 · Extended EN · Extended
PGPS	Coupling Policy Gradient with Population-Based Search	Single-Agent Optimization	Not found	Not found
ERL-Re2	ERL-Re^2: Efficient Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Shared State Representation and Individual Policy Representation	Representation and Search Decomposition	yeshenpy/ERL-Re2	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Policy Embedding Surrogate ERL	Enabling Surrogate-Assisted Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning via Policy Embedding	BIC-TA 2022	Not found	Not found
Neuroevolution Surrogates	Surrogate Models for Enhancing the Efficiency of Neuroevolution in Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2019	Not found	Not found
Policy Racing	Hoeffding and Bernstein Races for Selecting Policies in Evolutionary Direct Policy Search	ICML 2009	Not found	Not found
Efficient ERL Evaluation	An Efficient Evaluation Mechanism for Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	LNCS 2022	Not found	Not found
Hybrid SA-EMORL	Hybrid Surrogate Assisted Evolutionary Multiobjective Reinforcement Learning for Continuous Robot Control	EvoApplications 2024	Not found	Not found
SA-EMARL	Surrogate-Assisted Evolutionary Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Adaptive Fitness Evaluation	GECCO 2026	Not found	Not found
DRL-SMM	Deep Reinforcement Learning Assisted Surrogate Model Management for Expensive Constrained Multi-Objective Optimization	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2025	Not found	Not found

Variation Operator

Browse all 8 canonical works

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
GPO	Policy Optimization by Genetic Distillation	—	Not found	EN · Extended
CEM-RL	Combining Evolutionary and Gradient-Based Methods for Policy Search	ICLR 2019	apourchot/CEM-RL	中文 · Extended EN · Extended
CEM-ACER	Guiding Evolutionary Strategies with Off-Policy Actor-Critic	—	Not found	Not found
PBRL	Population Based Reinforcement Learning	—	Not found	Not found
DEPRL	Diversity Evolutionary Policy Deep Reinforcement Learning	Complexity 2021	Not found	Not found
Wuji	Wuji: Automatic Online Combat Game Testing Using Evolutionary Deep Reinforcement Learning	ASE 2019	NeteaseFuxiRL/wuji	中文 · Core
PE-DRL	Stable and Sample-Efficient Policy Search for Continuous Control via Hybridizing Phenotypic Evolutionary Algorithm with the Double Actors Regularized Critics	GECCO 2023	Not found	Not found
EDA-PG	Evolutionary Deep Reinforcement Learning via Hybridizing Estimation-of-Distribution Algorithms with Policy Gradients	IEEE CEC 2024	Not found	Not found

Quality-Diversity

Browse all 15 canonical works

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
NS-RL	Efficient Novelty Search through Deep Reinforcement Learning	—	shilx001/NoveltySearch_Improvement	中文 · Extended
QD-PG	Diversity Policy Gradient for Sample Efficient Quality-Diversity Optimization	GECCO 2022	Not found	中文 · Extended
PGA-ME	Policy Gradient Assisted MAP-Elites	GECCO 2021	ollebompa/PGA-MAP-Elites	EN · Extended
GAC QD-RL	Understanding the Synergies between Quality-Diversity and Deep Reinforcement Learning	Preprint 2023	Not found	Not found
CMA-MEGA	Approximating Gradients for Differentiable Quality Diversity in Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2022	icaros-usc/dqd-rl	EN 1 · Extended EN 2 · Extended
CCQD	Sample-Efficient Quality-Diversity by Cooperative Coevolution	ICLR 2024	lamda-bbo/CCQD	Not found
RefQD	Quality-Diversity with Limited Resources	GECCO 2024	lamda-bbo/RefQD	EN · Extended
QDHUAC	Distributional Value Estimation Without Target Networks for Robust Quality-Diversity	GECCO 2026 Full Paper	Not found	Not found
EDOCS	Evolutionary Diversity Optimization with Clustering-based Selection for Reinforcement Learning	ICLR 2022	official code page	Not found
DvD	Effective Diversity in Population Based Reinforcement Learning	NeurIPS 2020	jparkerholder/DvD_ES	Not found
QD-Sim	Quality-Similar Diversity via Population Based Reinforcement Learning	ICLR 2023	Not found	Not found
NS-ES	Improving Exploration in Evolution Strategies for Deep Reinforcement Learning via a Population of Novelty-Seeking Agents	NeurIPS 2018	Not found	Not found
CCNCS-ERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning via Cooperative Coevolutionary Negatively Correlated Search	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2022	Not found	Not found
DBBD-ERL	Evolutionary reinforcement learning with density-based behavioral diversity enhancement for berth allocation and crane assignment	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	Not found	Not found
QDRL-BRPG	Quality-Diversity Reinforcement Learning using Behavior Regulated Policy Gradient	ACM TELO 2026	Not found	Not found

Dynamic Operator Selection

This branch was empty in the previous README. Survey v5 identifies sixteen methods.

Browse all 30 methods

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
RL-GA(a)	Controlling Genetic Algorithms with Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2002	Not found	Not found
RLEP	Adaptive Evolutionary Programming Based on Reinforcement Learning	Information Sciences 2008	Not found	Not found
EA+RL	Increasing Efficiency of Evolutionary Algorithms by Choosing between Auxiliary Fitness Functions with Reinforcement Learning	ICMLA 2012	Not found	Not found
EA+RL(O)	Selecting Evolutionary Operators Using Reinforcement Learning: Initial Explorations	GECCO 2014	Not found	Not found
RL-GA(b)	RL-GA: A Reinforcement Learning-Based Genetic Algorithm for Electromagnetic Detection Satellite Scheduling Problem	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2023	Not found	Not found
GSF	Automated Design of Metaheuristics Using Reinforcement Learning within a Novel General Search Framework	IEEE TEVC 2023	Not found	Not found
MARLwCMA	Evolutionary Framework with Reinforcement Learning-Based Mutation Adaptation	IEEE Access 2020	Not found	Not found
MPSORL	Multi-strategy self-learning particle swarm optimization algorithm based on reinforcement learning	Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering 2023	Not found	Not found
DEDQN	Differential Evolution with Mixed Mutation Strategy Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning	Applied Soft Computing 2021	Not found	Not found
DE-DDQN	Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Parameter Control in Differential Evolution	GECCO 2019	Not found	Not found
RL-CORCO	Constrained Evolutionary Optimization Based on Reinforcement Learning Using the Objective Function and Constraints	Knowledge-Based Systems 2022	Not found	Not found
RL-HDE	Reinforcement Learning-Based Hybrid Differential Evolution for Global Optimization of Interplanetary Trajectory Design	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2023	Not found	Not found
DE-RLFR	Differential evolution based on reinforcement learning with fitness ranking for solving multimodal multiobjective problems	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2019	Not found	Not found
LRMODE	A Fitness Landscape Ruggedness Multiobjective Differential Evolution Algorithm with a Reinforcement Learning Strategy	Applied Soft Computing 2020	Not found	Not found
MOEA/D-DQN	Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Adaptive Operator Selection for Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization	IEEE TETCI 2023	Not found	Not found
AMODE-DRL	Scheduling of Continuous Annealing with a Multi-Objective Differential Evolution Algorithm Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning	IEEE T-ASE 2024	Not found	Not found
DRL-AEOSF	A Deep Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Evolutionary Operator Selection Framework for Constrained Optimization Problems	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	Not found	Not found
DRL-EMS	Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Environmental and Mating Selection for Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization	GECCO 2026	Not found	Not found
DRL-MM-MOEA	A Deep Reinforcement Learning-Guided Multimodal Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm with a Serial-Parallel Mechanism	Expert Systems with Applications 2026	Not found	Not found
RL-HH-OES	A Reinforcement Learning Hyper-Heuristic for Opposition-Enhanced Shuffled Multi-Strategy Evolutionary Algorithms with Adaptive Population Sizing	Applied Intelligence 2026	official data and MATLAB code	Not found
AOS-RL	Adaptive Operator Selection with Reinforcement Learning	Information Sciences 2021	Not found	Not found
OVEA	A Reference Vector Based Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm with Q-Learning for Operator Adaptation	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2023	Not found	Not found
RLDMDE	Dynamic Multi-Strategy Integrated Differential Evolution Algorithm Based on Reinforcement Learning for Optimization Problems	Complex & Intelligent Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
RL-AOS Runtime	Runtime Analysis of Adaptive Selection Variation Operators in Evolutionary Algorithm with Reinforcement Learning	Applied Intelligence 2025	Not found	Not found
GEA-AOS	Adaptive Operator Selection in Heuristic Optimization Utilizing Generalized Experience with Reinforcement Learning	International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems 2025	Not found	Not found
TL-AOS	Transfer Learning for Operator Selection: A Reinforcement Learning Approach	Algorithms 2022	Not found	Not found
CEDE-DRL	Deep Reinforcement Learning Assisted Co-Evolutionary Differential Evolution for Constrained Optimization	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2023	Not found	Not found
DRL-AOS-CMO	Constrained Multi-Objective Optimization With Deep Reinforcement Learning Assisted Operator Selection	IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica 2024	Not found	Not found
RL-CMTO	A Reinforcement Learning Assisted Evolutionary Algorithm for Constrained Multi-Task Optimization	Information Sciences 2024	Not found	Not found
DRL-AOP	Deep Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Automated Operator Portfolio for Constrained Multi-Objective Optimization	IEEE TETCI 2026	Not found	Not found

Dynamic Algorithm Configuration

This maintained branch extends the survey's hyperparameter-configuration grouping to cover learned, state-dependent algorithm configuration. Survey v5 contains AGA, LTO, RL-DAC, REM, Q-LSHADE & DQ-HSES, MADAC, qlDE, and RLDE; GS-DAC is the round-2 addition.

Browse all 29 canonical works

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
AGA	Reinforcement Learning for Online Control of Evolutionary Algorithms	—	Not found	Not found
LTO	Learning Step-Size Adaptation in CMA-ES	—	automl/LTO-CMA	EN · Extended
RL-DAC	Dynamic Algorithm Configuration: Foundation of a New Meta-Algorithmic Framework	—	automl/DAC	EN · Extended
REM	Variational Reinforcement Learning for Hyper-Parameter Tuning of Adaptive Evolutionary Algorithm	—	Not found	Not found
MADAC	Multiagent Dynamic Algorithm Configuration	—	lamda-bbo/madac	EN · Extended
Q-LSHADE & DQ-HSES	Controlling Sequential Hybrid EA by Q-Learning	—	official code	Not found
qlDE	Q-Learning-Based Parameter Control in Differential Evolution for Structural Optimization	—	Not found	Not found
RLDE	Reinforcement Learning-Based Differential Evolution for Parameters Extraction of Photovoltaic Models	—	Not found	Not found
GS-DAC	Graph-Supported Dynamic Algorithm Configuration for Multi-Objective Combinatorial Optimization	ICML 2025	RobbertReijnen/GS-MODAC	Not found
ERLA-HBS	An Adaptive Evolutionary-Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Hyperspectral Band Selection	Expert Systems with Applications 2024	Not found	Not found
ConfigX	ConfigX: Modular Configuration for Evolutionary Algorithms via Multitask Reinforcement Learning	AAAI 2025	MetaEvo/ConfigX	Not found
DRL-EA-CMO	Automated Configuration of Evolutionary Algorithms via Deep Reinforcement Learning for Constrained Multiobjective Optimization	IEEE TCYB 2025	Not found	Not found
RL-MS-ECMO	Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Multi-Stage Evolutionary Constrained Multi-Objective Optimization	ACM TELO 2025	Not found	Not found
AC-RL-MMO	Integrating Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning With Evolutionary Algorithm for Multimodal Multiobjective Optimization	IEEE TNNLS 2026	Not found	Not found
RL-MMOF	A Hybrid Evolutionary Framework Assisted by Reinforcement Learning for Mixed Multi-Objective Optimization Features	Applied Soft Computing 2026	Not found	Not found
RL-EA Helicopter	Reinforcement Learning-Enhanced Evolutionary Algorithm for Multi-Objective Optimal Control of a Laboratory Helicopter	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	Not found	Not found
SuperDE	Deep Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Component Auto-Configuration of Differential Evolution Algorithm for Constrained Optimization: A Foundation Model	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found
MetaMTO	Learning Where, What and How to Transfer: A Multi-Role Reinforcement Learning Approach for Evolutionary Multitasking	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found
LDE	Learning Adaptive Differential Evolution Algorithm From Optimization Experiences by Policy Gradient	IEEE TEVC 2021	yierh/LDE	Not found
RL-HPSDE	Differential Evolution with Hybrid Parameters and Mutation Strategies Based on Reinforcement Learning	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2022	Not found	Not found
RLDE-AFL	Reinforcement Learning-Based Self-Adaptive Differential Evolution Through Automated Landscape Feature Learning	GECCO 2025	MetaEvo/RLDE-AFL	Not found
RLDE-PFR	A Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Differential Evolution with Population Feature Replay	Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 2026	Strive-code/rl-pfr	Not found
RL-PC-MOEA/D	Reinforcement Learning Aided Parameter Control in Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition	Progress in Artificial Intelligence 2018	Not found	Not found
RL-AMH	Reinforcement Learning Based Adaptive Metaheuristics	GECCO 2022 Companion	Not found	Not found
RL-OGPA	Reinforcement Learning for Enhanced Online Gradient-Based Parameter Adaptation in Metaheuristics	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2023	Not found	Not found
DRL-DAS	Deep Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Algorithm Selection: A Proof-of-Principle Study on Differential Evolution	IEEE TSMC: Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
DRL-PC-MOEC	Parameter Control Framework for Multiobjective Evolutionary Computation Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning	International Journal of Intelligent Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
KB-HPA-DE	Knowledge-Based Hyper-Parameter Adaptation of Multi-Stage Differential Evolution by Deep Reinforcement Learning	Neurocomputing 2025	Not found	Not found
RLCDE-LBFGS	Reinforcement Learning-Controlled Differential Evolution with L-BFGS Refinements	PLOS ONE 2026	Not found	Not found

Dynamic Resource Allocation

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
RLDE-ARA	Reinforcement learning assisted differential evolution with adaptive resource allocation strategy for multimodal optimization problems	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2025	Not found	Not found
DRL Multi-Restart CMA-ES	Deep Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Restart Metaheuristics: An Environment Design for a Hybrid of Unbiased Exploratory Search and Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy	International Transactions in Operational Research 2026	Not found	Not found

Other RL-assisted EA methods

Browse all 11 canonical works

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
Grad-CEM	Model-Predictive Control via Cross-Entropy and Gradient-Based Optimization	—	homangab/gradcem	Not found
LOOP	Learning Off-Policy with Online Planning	—	hari-sikchi/LOOP	EN · Core
TD-MPC	Temporal Difference Learning for Model Predictive Control	—	nicklashansen/tdmpc	中文 · Core EN 1 · Extended EN 2 · Extended
RGP	Reinforced Genetic Programming	—	Not found	Not found
GNP-RL	A Graph-Based Evolutionary Algorithm: Genetic Network Programming (GNP) and Its Extension Using Reinforcement Learning	—	Not found	Not found
RL-EAO-MWS	Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Evolutionary Auxiliary Optimization for Multi-Workflow Scheduling in Clouds	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	Not found	Not found
SSR-RL-EA	Self-Supervised State Representation for Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Evolutionary Algorithms	IEEE CEC 2026	Not found	Not found
SparseOp-DRL	Combining Sparse Evolutionary Operators and Deep Reinforcement Learning for Large-Scale Sparse Multiobjective Optimization Problems	Applied Soft Computing 2026	Not found	Not found
AutoMH	AutoMH: Automatically Create Evolutionary Metaheuristic Algorithms Using Reinforcement Learning	Entropy 2022	Not found	Not found
RL Acceptance Criteria	Reinforcement Learning Based Acceptance Criteria for Metaheuristic Algorithms	International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems 2025	Not found	Not found
RL-RV-EMO	Reinforcement Learning and Reference Vector-Driven Expensive Multi-Objective Optimization	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found

Synergistic Optimization of EA and RL

EA and RL both contribute directly to solving the task, either in a shared solution space or through decomposed subproblems.

Single-Agent Optimization

Browse all 35 canonical works

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
ERL	Evolution-Guided Policy Gradient in Reinforcement Learning	NeurIPS 2018	ShawK91/Evolutionary-Reinforcement-Learning	EN 1 · Extended EN 2 · Extended
CERL	Collaborative Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	ICML 2019	intel/cerl	EN · Core
PDERL	Proximal Distilled Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	AAAI 2020	crisbodnar/pderl	中文 · Extended
SC	A Surrogate-Assisted Controller for Expensive Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	Information Sciences 2022	Yuxing-Wang-THU/Surrogate-assisted-ERL	中文 · Extended EN · Extended
GEATL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Sparse Rewards	GECCO 2021	Not found	Not found
CSPS	Cooperative Heterogeneous Deep Reinforcement Learning	NeurIPS 2020	Not found	Not found
T-ERL	Rethinking Population-Assisted Off-Policy Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2023	Not found	Not found
ESAC	Off-Policy Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Maximum Mutations	AAMAS 2022	karush17/esac	Not found
PGPS	Coupling Policy Gradient with Population-Based Search	ICLR 2021 submission	Not found	Not found
VEB-RL	Value-Evolutionary-Based Reinforcement Learning	ICML 2024	yeshenpy/VEB-RL	中文 · Core EN · Extended
EvoRainbow / EvoRainbow-Exp	EvoRainbow: Combining Improvements in Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Policy Search	ICML 2024	yeshenpy/EvoRainbow	中文 · Core EN · Extended
ERL-TD	ERL-TD: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Enhanced with Truncated Variance and Distillation Mutation	AAAI 2024	2019cyf/ERL-TD	Not found
CORE	CORE: Collaborative Optimization with Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Algorithm for Floorplanning	NeurIPS 2025	yeshenpy/CORE	中文 · Core EN · Extended
RIM	Recruitment-imitation mechanism for evolutionary reinforcement learning	Information Sciences 2021	Not found	Not found
PES	Proximal evolutionary strategy: improving deep reinforcement learning through evolutionary policy optimization	Memetic Computing 2024	Not found	Not found
RPSA-RL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning by Rank-one Evolution Strategy with Population Size Control	CIS 2023	Not found	Not found
EIERL	An Efficient Task-Oriented Dialogue Policy: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Injected by Elite Individuals	ACL 2025	Not found	Not found
Evo-RL for DPDP	A collaborative evolutionary reinforcement learning approach to dynamic pickup and delivery challenges	Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 2026	Not found	Not found
NES-ERL	Neuroevolution Strategies for Episodic Reinforcement Learning	Journal of Algorithms 2009	Not found	Not found
Preference Racing	Preference-Based Reinforcement Learning: Evolutionary Direct Policy Search Using a Preference-Based Racing Algorithm	Machine Learning 2014	Not found	Not found
TRES	Trust Region Evolution Strategies	AAAI 2019	Not found	Not found
AMF-ERL	Adaptive Multifactorial Evolutionary Optimization for Multitask Reinforcement Learning	IEEE TEVC 2022	Not found	Not found
SOS	Exploring Safer Behaviors for Deep Reinforcement Learning	AAAI 2022	Not found	Not found
MO-PDERL	A Two-Stage Multi-Objective Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Framework for Continuous Robot Control	GECCO 2023	Tran-Long/mopderl	Not found
Safety-Informed ERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning: Hybrid Approach for Safety-Informed Fault-Tolerant Flight Control	Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 2024	Not found	Not found
ERLBioSeq	Designing Biological Sequences without Prior Knowledge Using Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	AAAI 2024	Not found	Not found
EvOD	Scale Optimization Using Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Object Detection on Drone Imagery	AAAI 2024	UNNC-CV/EvOD	Not found
MO-ERL	Extending Evolution-Guided Policy Gradient Learning into the Multi-Objective Domain	Neurocomputing 2025	Not found	Not found
MCE-ERL	MCE-ERL: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Algorithm with Multi-Distribution Critics Evaluation	ICNSC 2025	Not found	Not found
Hetero-ERL	Heterogeneous Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Mixed Attention and Diffusion Model for Dynamic Seru Formation	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	Not found	Not found
EARL-NCO	Evolutionary Augmented Reinforcement Learning for Neural Combinatorial Optimization	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found
PD-EPO	Preference-Driven Evolutionary Policy Optimization in Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning	IEEE Access 2026	Not found	Not found
LLM-EA-HFSP	A Large Language Model-Assisted Reinforcement Learning Framework with Evolutionary Algorithm for Hybrid Flow-Shop Scheduling	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found
ERL-WPSS	An Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Framework for Joint Work Package Sizing and Scheduling with Uncertainties	European Journal of Operational Research 2026	Not found	Not found
ERL-ER-FedHG	ERL-ER-FedHG: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Experience Replay for Federated Heterogeneous Graphs	Applied Soft Computing 2026	Not found	Not found

EvoRainbow and its experimental label refer to one paper and count once. CORE remains primarily single-agent ERL; solution-space/policy-space co-optimization is retained as a secondary tag, and its recent-work row is a non-counting cross-list.

Adaptive, Staged, or Stabilized Coupling

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
BEL	Efficient and Stable Off-policy Training via Behavior-aware Evolutionary Learning	CoRL 2022 / PMLR 2023	raymond-myc/BEL	Not found
AERL / AESAC	Adaptive Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Policy Direction	Neural Processing Letters 2024	Not found	Not found
TERL	Two-Stage Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Enhancing Exploration and Exploitation	AAAI 2024	Not found	Not found
NCG-ERL	Balance of exploration and exploitation: Non-cooperative game-driven evolutionary reinforcement learning	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2024	Not found	Not found
GDR	Genetic Drift Regularization: On Preventing Actor Injection from Breaking Evolution Strategies	IEEE CEC 2024	Not found	Not found
AERL-ET	Adaptive Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Algorithm with Early Termination Strategy	AAMAS 2024	Not found	Not found
SERL-OS-EF	Strategic Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning With Operator Selection and Experience Filter	IEEE TNNLS 2025	Not found	Not found
GECE-RL	Genetic-Enhanced Cross-Entropy Reinforcement Learning	Neurocomputing 2026	Sofilyzia/gece-rl	Not found
Progressive Episodes ES	An Evolution Strategy with Progressive Episode Lengths for Playing Games	IJCAI 2019	Not found	Not found
AES-EM	Adaptive Evolution Strategy with Ensemble of Mutations for Reinforcement Learning	Knowledge-Based Systems 2022	Not found	Not found
MTNE-LSE	Multitask Neuroevolution for Reinforcement Learning With Long and Short Episodes	IEEE TCDS 2023	Not found	Not found
GESP	Generalized Early Stopping in Evolutionary Direct Policy Search	ACM TELO 2024	Not found	Not found
Adaptive Mutation ERL	Adaptive Optimization in Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Using Evolutionary Mutation Rates	IEEE Access 2024	Not found	Not found
ACERL-DMH	Robust Dynamic Material Handling via Adaptive Constrained Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	IEEE TNNLS 2025	Not found	Not found
DG-ERL	Dynamic Grouping Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Scheduling Workflows in Hybrid Clouds	Applied Soft Computing 2026	Not found	Not found
LCERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning With Late-Start Evolution and Clustering Archive	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found
Dual-Drive-ERL	Dual-Drive-ERL: A Dual-Population Interactive-Driven Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Dynamic Traffic Assignment	IEEE CEC 2026	Not found	Not found

Representation and Search Decomposition

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
ERL-Re2	ERL-Re^2: Efficient Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Shared State Representation and Individual Policy Representation	ICLR 2023	yeshenpy/ERL-Re2	中文 · Core EN · Extended
CoERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning via Cooperative Coevolution	ECAI 2024	HcPlu/CoERL	Not found
ERL-CDR	ERL-CDR: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Causal Decoupling Representation	ICA3PP 2025 · first online 2026	Not found	Not found
SAR-ERL	SAR-ERL: an evolutionary reinforcement learning optimization method based on state-action co-representation embedding	Complex & Intelligent Systems 2026	Not found	Not found
MO-CoERL	MO-CoERL: Multi-objective cooperative evolutionary deep reinforcement learning	Information Sciences 2026	Not found	Not found
ER-MRL	Evolving Reservoirs for Meta Reinforcement Learning	EvoApplications 2024	corentinlger/ER-MRL	Not found
EFA	Evolutionary Function Approximation for Reinforcement Learning	JMLR 2006	Not found	Not found
SE-EFA	Sample-Efficient Evolutionary Function Approximation for Reinforcement Learning	AAAI 2006	Not found	Not found
GP Feature Discovery	Feature Discovery in Reinforcement Learning Using Genetic Programming	EuroGP 2008	Not found	Not found
CoSyNE	Accelerated Neural Evolution through Cooperatively Coevolved Synapses	JMLR 2008	Not found	Not found
World Models	Recurrent World Models Facilitate Policy Evolution	NeurIPS 2018	hardmaru/WorldModelsExperiments	Not found
Weight-Freezing ERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Weight-Freezing and Markov Blanket-Based Dimensionality Reduction	Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2026	oladayosolomon/xSTMBGA	Not found
Co-PDERL	Co-Evolutionary Proximal Distilled Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Gated Knowledge Transfer	Mathematics 2026	Not found	Not found
EE-MORL	Experience Evolution-Guided Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found

Multi-Agent Optimization

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
MERL	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Sample-Efficient Multiagent Coordination	ICML 2020	ShawK91/MERL	中文 · Core EN · Core
NS-MERL	Novelty Seeking Multi-Agent ERL	GECCO 2023	Not found	Not found
CEMARL	Evolution Strategies Enhanced Complex Multiagent Coordination	IJCNN 2023	Not found	Not found
EMARL	Cooperation and Competition: Flocking with Evolutionary Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	ICONIP 2022	Not found	Not found
RACE	RACE: Improve Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Representation Asymmetry and Collaborative Evolution	ICML 2023	yeshenpy/RACE	中文 · Core EN · Extended
MRPM	A modified evolutionary reinforcement learning for multi-agent region protection with fewer defenders	Complex & Intelligent Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
EMARL-UAV	An Evolutionary Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Multi-UAV Air Combat	Knowledge-Based Systems 2024	Not found	Not found
MAERL-CG	Multi-Agent Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Based on Cooperative Games	IEEE TETCI 2025 · early access 2024	Not found	Not found
EECG	Enhancing Graph-Based Coordination with Evolutionary Algorithms for Episodic Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	AAMAS 2025	MercyM/EECG	Not found
CCL	CCL: Collaborative Curriculum Learning for Sparse-Reward Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning via Co-Evolutionary Task Evolution	ICIC 2025	Not found	Not found
GDE	Graph Based Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Evolutionary Population for Cooperation	Neural Networks 2026	MercyM/GDE	Not found
ES-MCV Dispatch	Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learning With Evolutionary Strategy for Mobile Charging Vehicles Dispatching	IEEE TNNLS 2026	Not found	Not found

Reward Design

Reward search is split by mechanism so classical evolutionary reward search is not conflated with LLM-generated reward programs. Evo-Reward is counted here; EA-assisted reward search is a secondary tag only.

Browse all 12 canonical works

Non-LLM Evolutionary Reward Search

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
Evo-Reward	Genetic Programming for Reward Function Search	IEEE TAMD 2010	Not found	Not found
Co-Evolved Shaping Rewards	Co-Evolution of Shaping Rewards and Meta-Parameters in Reinforcement Learning	Adaptive Behavior 2008	Not found	Not found
Evolutionary Intrinsic Motivation	Intrinsically Motivated Reinforcement Learning: An Evolutionary Perspective	IEEE TAMD 2010	Not found	Not found
GP End-Goal Reward	Breaking Free from Hand-Crafted Rewards: A Genetic Programming Framework for End-Goal-Driven Reinforcement Learning	IEEE CEC 2026	Not found	Not found

LLM-based Reward Program Evolution

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
Eureka	Human-Level Reward Design via Coding Large Language Models	ICLR 2024	eureka-research/Eureka	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
DrEureka	Language Model Guided Sim-to-Real Transfer	RSS 2024	eureka-research/dreureka	EN · Extended
ROSKA	Efficient Language-Instructed Skill Acquisition via Reward-Policy Co-Evolution	AAAI 2025	Not found	中文 · Core
R*	R*: Efficient Reward Design via Reward Structure Evolution and Parameter Alignment Optimization with Large Language Models	ICML 2025	Not found	中文 · Core
LaRes	LaRes: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with LLM-Based Adaptive Reward Search	NeurIPS 2025	yeshenpy/LaRes	中文 · Core EN · Extended
LERO	LERO: LLM-Driven Evolutionary Framework with Hybrid Rewards and Enhanced Observation for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	ICIC 2025	Not found	Not found
ReMAC	ReMAC: Large Language Model-Driven Reward Design for Multi-Agent Manipulation Collaboration	NeurIPS Workshop 2025	Not found	EN · Extended
Physics-LLM Reward Evolution	Integrating Analytical Physics with LLM-Guided Reward Evolution in Reinforcement Learning	IEEE TEVC 2026	Not found	Not found

Morphological Evolution

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
EvoGym	Evolution Gym: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Evolving Soft Robots	NeurIPS 2021	EvolutionGym/evogym	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
HERD	Leveraging Hyperbolic Embeddings for Coarse-to-Fine Robot Design	ICLR 2024	drdh/HERD	EN · Extended
AIEA	Rapidly Evolving Soft Robots via Action Inheritance	IEEE TEVC 2024	HandingWangXDGroup/AIEA	Not found
DERL	Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolution	Nature Communications 2021	agrimgupta92/derl	中文 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
TAME	Task-Agnostic Morphology Evolution	ICLR 2021	jhejna/morphology-opt	Not found
Encoding study	How the Morphology Encoding Influences the Learning Ability in Body-Brain Co-Optimization	GECCO 2023	Not found	EN · Extended

Interpretable AI

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
POC-NLDT	Toward Interpretable-AI Policies Using Evolutionary Nonlinear Decision Trees for Discrete Action Systems	IEEE TCYB 2024	yddhebar/NLDT	EN · Extended
GE-QL / CG-DT	Interpretable AI for Policy-Making in Pandemics	GECCO 2022	Not found	Not found
CC-POC	A Co-Evolutionary Approach to Interpretable RL in Environments with Continuous Action Spaces	SSCI 2021	Not found	EN · Extended
QD-GT	Quality Diversity Evolutionary Learning of Decision Trees	ACM SAC 2023	Not found	Not found
SIRL	Social Interpretable Reinforcement Learning	EvoApplications 2025	Not found	Not found
SVI	Symbolic Regression Methods for Reinforcement Learning	IEEE Access 2021	Not found	Not found
Critic-Moderated Evolution	Human-Readable Programs as Actors of Reinforcement Learning Agents Using Critic-Moderated Evolution	BNAIC/BeNeLearn 2024	Not found	Not found
GP Interpretable Policies	Interpretable Policies for Reinforcement Learning by Genetic Programming	Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 2018	Not found	Not found
EFS Policy Derivation	Interpretable Policy Derivation for Reinforcement Learning Based on Evolutionary Feature Synthesis	Complex & Intelligent Systems 2020	Not found	Not found
MOERL-Interp	Multi-Objective Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Pareto-Optimal Interpretable Policies	Applied Soft Computing 2026	redcican/morl-interp	Not found
ERLER	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Explainable Recommendation on Knowledge Graph	Applied Soft Computing 2026	Not found	Not found

Learning Classifier Systems

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
XCS	Classifier Fitness Based on Accuracy	Evolutionary Computation 1995	community implementation	EN · Extended
XCSG / XCSRG	Gradient Descent Methods in Learning Classifier Systems: Improving XCS Performance in Multistep Problems	IEEE TEVC 2005	Not found	Not found
XCSF	Classifiers That Approximate Functions	Natural Computing 2002	Not found	Not found
XCSF with tile coding	XCSF with Tile Coding in Discontinuous Action-Value Landscapes	Evolutionary Intelligence 2015	Not found	Not found
DGP-XCSF	Dynamical Genetic Programming in XCSF	Evolutionary Computation 2013	Not found	Not found

Frameworks, benchmarks, and tooling

Resource	Scope	Paper	Code	Guide
EvoRL	GPU-accelerated ERL, EC, AutoRL, and RL workflows in JAX	EvoRL: A GPU-Accelerated Framework for ERL, ACM TELO 2025	EMI-Group/evorl	Not found
EvoX	Distributed GPU-accelerated evolutionary computation	Documentation	EMI-Group/evox	Not found
QDax	Quality-Diversity and neuroevolution in JAX	QDax	adaptive-intelligent-robotics/QDax	Not found
QD skill discovery	Comparing neuroevolution and RL for skill discovery	Paper	instadeepai/qd-skill-discovery-benchmark	Not found
EvoGym	Co-design benchmark for soft robots	Paper	EvolutionGym/evogym	中文 1 · Core 中文 2 · Core EN 1 · Core EN 2 · Extended
PBRL GPU Benchmark	GPU-accelerated population-based RL evaluation across robotic tasks	Benchmarking Population-Based Reinforcement Learning across Robotic Tasks with GPU-Accelerated Simulation, IEEE CASE 2025	Asad-Shahid/PBRL	Not found

These are non-canonical implementation, benchmark, or tooling resources and do not enter the 270-work or code-first counts. EvoGym is cross-listed with Morphological Evolution and counted once there.

Recent and emerging directions

Accepted papers are separated from canonical preprints and the non-counting watchlist. CORE and LaRes are cross-listed here for recency and are counted only in their primary synergistic branches.

Published or accepted

Method	Paper	Venue	Code	Guide
ERLAP	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Parameterized Action Primitives for Diverse Manipulation Tasks	AAAI 2025	Not found	Not found
CORE	CORE: Collaborative Optimization with Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Algorithm for Floorplanning	NeurIPS 2025	yeshenpy/CORE	中文 · Core EN · Extended
LaRes	LaRes: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with LLM-Based Adaptive Reward Search	NeurIPS 2025	yeshenpy/LaRes	中文 · Core EN · Extended
Nevo-CRL	Neuro-Evolutionary Continual Reinforcement Learning	ICML 2026 Spotlight	yeshenpy/Nevo-CRL	EN · Extended
HELIX	Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning for Open-Ended Scientific Problem Solving	ICLR 2026	Not found	Not found
JEDi	Quality with Just Enough Diversity in Evolutionary Policy Search	GECCO 2024	Not found	EN · Extended

Canonical preprints and active submissions

Method	Paper	Status	Code	Guide
Differentiable Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning	arXiv:2512.13399	Preprint	sitaocheng/DERL	EN · Extended
Lifelong Control through Neuro-Evolution	OpenReview	Submitted work	Not found	Not found

Watchlist (not counted as canonical works)

Method	Paper	Status	Code	Guide
MEGA	Model Evolution Framework with Genetic Algorithm for Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning	Preprint 2025; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
Surrogate AE-HNN ERL	Surrogate-Assisted Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Based on Autoencoder and Hyperbolic Neural Network	Preprint 2025; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
BASIL	BASIL: Best-Action Symbolic Interpretable Learning for Evolving Compact RL Policies	Preprint 2025; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
E-SPL	Evolutionary System Prompt Learning for Reinforcement Learning in LLMs	Accepted at ICML 2026 CompLearn Workshop	LunjunZhang/E-SPL	Not found
SV-QD-RL	Structure-Conditioned Actor-Critic Branches for Quality-Diversity Reinforcement Learning	Preprint 2026; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
NEOL	Provably Sub-Linear Two-Timescale NeuroEvolution with Online Plasticity	Accepted at IJCAI-ECAI 2026	boobaa2001/NeuroEvolution_Online_Learning_NEOL	Not found
GERS	Evolutionary Bilevel Reward Shaping for Generalization in Reinforcement Learning	Preprint; author reports PPSN 2026 acceptance	Not found	Not found
Developmental Reward Schedules	Evolutionary Discovery of Developmental Reward Schedules in Deep Reinforcement Learning	Preprint; author reports IEEE ICDL 2026 acceptance	alannadels/Evolutionary_RL	Not found
HTSE candidate	Scalable Evolutionary Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2022 Companion candidate; HTSE identity not uniquely confirmed	Not found	Not found
Diverse RL Agents with MAP-Elites	Evolving Populations of Diverse RL Agents with MAP-Elites	Preprint 2023; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
Evolving Constrained RL Policy	Evolving Constrained Reinforcement Learning Policy	Preprint 2023; no formal venue verified	Not found	Not found
RL-GFM	Grid-Based Evolutionary Algorithm for Multi-Objective Molecule Generation Enhanced by Reinforcement Learning	Under review at ICLR 2026	Not found	Not found
HERL	HERL: Hybrid Evolutionary and Reinforcement Learning Method for Macro Placement	IEEE TII Early Access 2026; independent ERL-mechanism verification pending	Not found	Not found
PG-QD Cooperative MARL	Combining Policy Gradients with Quality-Diversity in Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning	GECCO 2026 Companion short paper; full mechanism or extension pending	Not found	Not found

Related surveys

• Bridging Evolutionary Algorithms and Reinforcement Learning: A Comprehensive Survey on Hybrid Algorithms
• Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning: A Survey
• Reinforcement Learning-Assisted Evolutionary Algorithm: A Survey and Research Opportunities
• Combining Evolution and Deep Reinforcement Learning for Policy Search: A Survey

Contributing

Please open an issue or pull request with:

1. the paper title and BibTeX;
2. an official paper URL (publisher, proceedings, arXiv, or OpenReview);
3. an author-maintained code URL, if available;
4. one taxonomy branch from this README;
5. one or two sentences explaining the EA-RL interaction.

To keep the list reliable, unofficial mirrors, generic search pages, and paper pages mislabeled as code will not be added.

Citation

@article{li2025bridging,
  author  = {Pengyi Li and Jianye Hao and Hongyao Tang and Xian Fu and Yan Zheng and Ke Tang},
  title   = {Bridging Evolutionary Algorithms and Reinforcement Learning: A Comprehensive Survey on Hybrid Algorithms},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation},
  year    = {2025},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {5},
  pages   = {1707--1728},
  doi     = {10.1109/TEVC.2024.3443913}
}