AI Insight
IdeaTrail is a dataset containing 1,170 multi-turn trajectories that document the complete scientific ideation process, from literature search and evidence gathering through brainstorming and proposal writing. The dataset was created using a Generator-Advisor loop that synthesizes realistic research workflows from human-selected papers and proposals, capturing tool use, intermediate artifacts, and reasoning steps. This resource addresses a gap in existing datasets by providing full process traces rather than just isolated components or final outputs.
Why it matters
IdeaTrail enables the development and training of AI agents that can assist researchers throughout the entire scientific discovery process, not just isolated tasks. The dataset's methodology also provides a reusable framework for creating process-supervision data in other scientific domains.
Understand the Science
arXiv:2607.10144v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Scientific ideation unfolds over multiple stages, including literature search, paper reading, tool use, claim checking, cross-paper synthesis, brainstorming, rejection of weak directions, and iterative writing. Yet most existing resources capture isolated components or final artifacts rather than the process connecting them. We introduce IdeaTrail, a dataset of 1,170 multi-turn trajectories for scientific ideation and proposal generation. Each trajectory follows a research process from evidence gathering to either idea selection or proposal construction, jointly recording tool use, acquired evidence, intermediate artifacts, and reasoning. IdeaTrail is synthesized from human-selected research papers and proposal artifacts through a Generator–Advisor loop. The Generator produces the visible sequence of actions, observations, and artifact edits, while the Advisor uses the full generation context to check grounding, causal order, naturalness, and leakage from hidden targets. This reverse-to-forward design keeps trajectories aligned with real scientific artifacts while retaining the uncertainty, evidence use, and staged convergence characteristic of research practice. IdeaTrail provides both reusable process supervision and a general recipe for constructing scientific-research-agent data.
Source: IdeaTrail: Full-Process Agent Trajectories for Scientific Ideation