ACL Findings2025
CausalRAG: Integrating Causal Graphs into Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Nengbo Wang, Xiaotian Han, Jagdip Singh, Jing Ma, Vipin Chaudhary
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized natural language processing (NLP), particularly through Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which enhances LLM capabilities by integrating external knowledge. However, traditional RAG systems face critical limitations, including disrupted contextual integrity due to text chunking, and over-reliance on semantic similarity for retrieval. To address these issues, we propose CausalRAG, a novel framework that incorporates causal graphs into the retrieval process. By constructing and tracing causal relationships, CausalRAG preserves contextual continuity and improves retrieval precision, leading to more accurate and interpretable responses. We evaluate CausalRAG against regular RAG and graph-based RAG approaches, demonstrating its superiority across several metrics. Our findings suggest that grounding retrieval in causal reasoning provides a promising approach to knowledge-intensive tasks 1 .
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Cited by top-tier papers2
- Graph-R1: Towards Agentic GraphRAG Framework via End-to-end Reinforcement LearningHaoran Luo, Haihong E, Guanting Chen, Qika Lin et al.ICML 2026 · 50 citations
- CausalRAG2: Hierarchical Causal Knowledge Graph Design for RAGNengbo Wang, Tuo Liang, Vikash Singh, Chaoda Song et al.ICML 2026 · 2 citations
Builds on4
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP TasksPatrick Lewis, Ethan Perez, Aleksandra Piktus, Fabio Petroni et al.NeurIPS 2020 · 19,162 citations
- Two-stage Generative Question Answering on Temporal Knowledge Graph Using Large Language ModelsYifu Gao, Linbo Qiao, Zhigang Kan, Zhihua Wen et al.ACL Findings 2024 · 31 citations
- Speculative RAG: Enhancing Retrieval Augmented Generation through DraftingZilong Wang, Zifeng Wang, Long T. Le, Huaixiu Steven Zheng et al.ICLR 2025 · 7 citations
- From RAG to Memory: Non-Parametric Continual Learning for Large Language ModelsBernal Jiménez Gutiérrez, Yiheng Shu, Weijian Qi, Sizhe Zhou et al.ICML 2025
Related papers
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- A Unified Framework for Context-Aware and Relation-Aware Graph Retrieval-Augmented GenerationHaoyang Zhong, Yifei Sun, Antong Zhang, Chunping Wang et al.WWW 2026
