Scope sets how closely a result must match your search to be shown. It applies to searches with text in every tab: Publications, Authors, Venues and Institutions. You find it in the switcher beside the result count, where a meter of one to four filled segments shows the current level.

A search with text ranks its top 1,000 publications by best match (see How Search Works in Keenious). An AI model then reads a sample of those publications, spread from the top of the list to the bottom, and grades how well each one matches your search from its title, year, venue and part of its abstract. From these grades Keenious estimates how the share of matching papers falls as you go down the list. Each Scope level keeps the results from the top down to the point where that share drops below the level's floor.

The kept results are always the top of the best-match list. No paper is removed on its own grade while the papers around it stay, so a list can keep the occasional off-topic paper, and a relevant paper just below the cut is left out.

Each level keeps everything a stricter level keeps. The Scope menu shows how many results each level would give for the current search, so you can see the difference before you switch. Changing Scope runs the search again, and the search map and its research areas are built from the new list.

The menu on the result count sets how many results a search keeps: up to 100, 300, 500 or 1,000 on a search with text, with 1,000 as the default. Scope is applied within the same top 1,000 whatever this setting is, so a smaller setting gives the top of the same list.

Because Scope can end the list early, the menu reads "Up to", and a search can return fewer results than you chose. Keenious then offers the broader levels together with the number of results each would give. With Scope set, the count shows the results kept and no total, since the grading estimates where matches thin out and does not count every matching paper in the index.

A search without text, such as browsing with filters only, has nothing to grade against. Scope is greyed out there, and the search keeps the first results in your chosen sort order, up to 10,000.

The cut is made on the best-match order, and the Sort control then reorders only the kept results. Under Focused or Balanced, sorting by Most cited or Most recent therefore orders papers that match your search. Under All, the most cited papers among the top 1,000 can include widely cited work from neighbouring fields that only touches on your topic.

These tabs rank authors, venues and institutions by the publications that match your search (see Searching for Authors, Venues and Institutions). Scope decides which of those publications count.

The ranking is built once, from the publications that Exploratory keeps. Balanced and Focused then keep only the authors, venues or institutions whose number of matching publications at that level puts them in the leading group, and these keep their order. A stricter level therefore gives a shorter list of those with the most matching work. One that your search names directly, such as a university searched for by name, stays at every level. The match count on each card counts its matching publications at the chosen level.