CORDIS EU Research Projects Scraper

Export EU-funded research projects, grants, consortium organizations, funding amounts, calls, topics, objectives, and public deliverable links from official CORDIS open data.

The Actor downloads one current European Commission dataset bundle per run, applies your filters, joins project records to participants and public links, and saves clean project-centric JSON rows. No CORDIS login or API key is required.

What does CORDIS EU Research Projects Scraper do?

Use this Actor to turn the official CORDIS bulk files into a focused dataset that is ready for analysis.

• 🔎 Search project titles, acronyms, objectives, keywords, and topic codes.
• 💶 Filter projects by EU contribution range.
• 🏢 Find grants involving a named organization or participant country.
• 📅 Limit results by project status and start date.
• 🔗 Collect official project, publication, and deliverable links.
• 🤝 Export consortium members, roles, addresses, and contributions.
• ♻️ Schedule recurring exports to monitor newly updated grants.

Each dataset row represents one project. Participants and links are nested under that project, so users do not need to reconstruct joins between multiple CORDIS CSV files.

Who is it for?

Grant intelligence teams

Track funded themes, compare contribution levels, and build prospect lists around active EU programmes.

Universities and research offices

Find relevant calls, inspect successful consortium structures, and discover repeat collaborators.

Research consultancies

Build evidence-backed landscapes for clients without manually downloading and joining bulk files.

Policy analysts

Analyze funding distribution by country, topic, organization type, dates, or programme.

Vendors and business development teams

Find funded organizations that may need scientific equipment, software, compliance, or professional services.

Why use this Actor?

CORDIS already publishes excellent open data, but its programme bundles are large and normalized across several CSV tables. A useful export normally requires downloading a ZIP, parsing semicolon-delimited records, handling European decimal commas, and joining project IDs to organizations and links.

This Actor performs that workflow automatically while preserving source URLs and update dates.

• Official European Commission source
• Repeatable input and output contract
• Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or Parquet through Apify
• API, webhook, schedule, Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, and MCP support
• Low result limits for inexpensive first runs

Supported framework programmes

Choose one programme for each run:

Input value	Programme
HORIZON	Horizon Europe
H2020	Horizon 2020
FP7	Seventh Framework Programme
FP6	Sixth Framework Programme

One bundle is downloaded per run. Separate scheduled runs are recommended when you need several programmes.

What data can I extract?

Field	Description
projectId	CORDIS grant/project identifier
acronym, title, status	Core project identity
startDate, endDate	Project dates
totalCost, euContribution	Project cost and maximum EU contribution
topics, masterCall, subCall	Topic and call identifiers
frameworkProgramme, fundingScheme	Programme and scheme
objective, keywords	Research description and keywords
participants	Organizations, countries, roles, addresses, and contributions
publicLinks	Public deliverable, publication, and related links
contentUpdateDate	CORDIS record update timestamp
projectUrl, sourceDatasetUrl	Traceable official sources

Optional source fields may be absent on older records. The Actor omits unavailable optional values instead of inventing them.

How to search EU research grants

1. Open the Actor input page.
2. Select a framework programme.
3. Enter a keyword such as solar, quantum, or carbon capture.
4. Add topic, call, date, funding, or consortium filters if needed.
5. Set a small maxItems value for the first run.
6. Click Start.
7. Open the Dataset tab to preview or export projects.

All populated filter groups are combined with AND logic. Within topics, calls, or participantCountries, any supplied value may match.

Input reference

Input	Type	Purpose
framework	string	Programme bundle, default HORIZON
maxItems	integer	Maximum project rows, 1–10,000
projectIds	string[]	Exact grant IDs
statuses	string[]	Exact CORDIS statuses
keyword	string	Search core project text
topics	string[]	Topic code fragments
calls	string[]	Master/sub-call fragments
startDateFrom, startDateTo	string	Inclusive YYYY-MM-DD boundaries
minEuContribution, maxEuContribution	number	Inclusive euro range
participantCountries	string[]	Two-letter country codes
participantQuery	string	Organization name, ID, short name, or VAT
includeParticipants	boolean	Join organization details
includeLinks	boolean	Join public links

Example input: solar research projects

{
  "framework": "HORIZON",
  "keyword": "solar",
  "statuses": ["SIGNED"],
  "minEuContribution": 1000000,
  "maxItems": 25,
  "includeParticipants": true,
  "includeLinks": true
}

Example input: consortium partner discovery

{
  "framework": "HORIZON",
  "participantCountries": ["FI", "SE", "DK"],
  "participantQuery": "university",
  "topics": ["CL5"],
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example output

{
  "projectId": "101069359",
  "acronym": "SolDAC",
  "status": "SIGNED",
  "title": "Full spectrum SOLar Direct Air Capture & conversion",
  "startDate": "2022-09-01",
  "endDate": "2025-08-31",
  "totalCost": 2073781.25,
  "euContribution": 2073781.25,
  "topics": ["HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-11"],
  "fundingScheme": "HORIZON-RIA",
  "participants": [{
    "organizationId": "912743326",
    "name": "LOMARTOV SL",
    "country": "ES",
    "role": "participant",
    "ecContribution": 299250
  }],
  "projectUrl": "https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101069359"
}

Filtering behavior

Text matching is case-insensitive. keyword searches the project ID, acronym, title, objective, keywords, and topics.

Participant country and participant query filters are evaluated against organization rows before projects are selected. A project qualifies when at least one participant satisfies both populated participant filters.

Date comparisons use ISO YYYY-MM-DD values. Invalid or unparseable numeric source values fail closed for funding filters.

How much does it cost to scrape CORDIS projects?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a small start charge plus a charge for each saved project. The current BRONZE baseline is shown on the Actor pricing tab; higher Apify plans receive automatic volume discounts.

You are charged for project rows, not for every participant or link nested inside them. Set maxItems to control output and use precise filters for focused exports.

Apify provides monthly platform credits on eligible plans. Check the live pricing panel before a large run because the Store pricing configuration is authoritative.

Performance and large exports

The Actor streams CSV records and writes the expanded bundle to temporary run storage instead of loading the full source into memory.

A narrow export still downloads the selected official programme bundle because participants and links live in separate files. Run time therefore depends more on bundle size and network speed than on maxItems alone.

For recurring workflows, schedule one purposeful export rather than many overlapping small runs.

Data freshness

CORDIS controls publication and refresh timing. Every output includes contentUpdateDate, sourceDatasetUrl, and scrapedAt so downstream systems can distinguish the source update time from the extraction time.

The Actor does not modify or infer official grant values.

Scheduling and monitoring

Create an Apify schedule to run daily, weekly, or monthly. Typical monitoring patterns include:

• Newly started projects in a topic
• Updated projects involving target organizations
• Signed grants above a funding threshold
• Projects involving participants in selected countries
• Newly published deliverables or links

Use dataset exports or webhooks to compare snapshots in your own warehouse.

Integrations

Google Sheets

Use the Apify Google Sheets integration to send a filtered project table to grant or sales teams.

Make and Zapier

Trigger downstream enrichment, CRM creation, notifications, or document generation after a run succeeds.

Webhooks

Attach a run-succeeded webhook and fetch the default dataset from your application.

Cloud warehouses

Export JSON, CSV, or Parquet and load records into BigQuery, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, or a lakehouse.

API usage with JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/cordis-eu-research-projects-scraper').call({
  framework: 'HORIZON',
  keyword: 'quantum',
  maxItems: 50
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/cordis-eu-research-projects-scraper').call(run_input={
    'framework': 'HORIZON',
    'participantCountries': ['DE', 'FR'],
    'maxItems': 50,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~cordis-eu-research-projects-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"framework":"HORIZON","keyword":"battery","maxItems":20}'

Use the Actor through MCP

Connect Apify Actors to Claude Code with the Apify MCP server:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cordis-eu-research-projects-scraper

For Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code, add this MCP JSON block to the client MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cordis-eu-research-projects-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• “Find 30 Horizon Europe projects about direct air capture and summarize their consortium countries.”
• “Export signed quantum projects with more than €2 million in EU contribution.”
• “Find Horizon projects involving Finnish universities and list coordinators.”

Tips for reliable results

• Start with maxItems: 10 to validate filters.
• Use official two-letter country codes such as DE, ES, or FI.
• Use topic fragments when you do not know the complete CORDIS code.
• Disable participant or link joins when you only need project metadata.
• Run separate programme exports instead of combining incompatible time periods.
• Preserve projectId as the stable key in downstream databases.

FAQ and troubleshooting

Why did my run return zero projects?

Your combined filters may be too strict. Remove participant or funding filters one at a time, verify the selected framework, and try a broader keyword.

Why does a small export still take time?

CORDIS publishes programme-wide bulk bundles. The Actor downloads and parses the selected bundle before joining the requested project rows.

Why is an optional field missing?

Older programmes and individual projects do not always provide every organization, DOI, keyword, cost, or link field. Missing source values are omitted.

Legality and responsible use

CORDIS provides public European Commission research information and open-data downloads. Follow the source terms, applicable database rights, privacy laws, and your organization’s compliance requirements.

Participant contact-form URLs are official project contact routes, not permission for unsolicited messaging. Use exported information responsibly and avoid spam or discriminatory profiling.

This Actor is an independent extraction tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the European Commission.

Related research data Actors

Combine this Actor with other automation-lab research and public-data tools where relevant:

• NSF Research Awards Scraper for US National Science Foundation awards
• ORCID Researcher Profile Scraper for public researcher profiles
• OpenAlex Works Search Scraper for scholarly works

Source and support

Data source: CORDIS — EU research results.

If a source schema changes or a filter behaves unexpectedly, open an issue from the Actor page and include the run ID plus a minimal input example.