ResearchCodeBench: Benchmarking LLMs on Implementing Novel Machine Learning Research Code

Tianyu Hua, Harper Hua, Violet Xiang, Benjamin Klieger, Sang T. Truong, Weixin Liang, Fan-Yun Sun, Nick Haber

Keywords: Machine learning benchmarks, Code generation, Large language models, Research automation

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise in transforming machine learning research, yet their capability to faithfully implement genuinely novel ideas from recent research papers—ideas unseen during pretraining—remains unclear. We introduce ResearchCodeBench, a benchmark that evaluates LLMs’ ability to translate cutting-edge ML contributions from top 2024-2025 research papers into executable code. We assessed 30+ proprietary and open-source LLMs, finding that even the best models correctly implement less than 40% of the code. We present empirical findings on performance comparison, contamination, and error patterns. By providing a rigorous evaluation platform, ResearchCodeBench enables continuous understanding and advancement of LLM-driven innovation in research code generation.

Code URL: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/ResearchCodeBench

Primary Area: Datasets & Benchmarks for applications in language modeling and vision language modeling

Submission Number: 1610