📚 OpenAlex Scraper — Academic Papers, Authors & Citation Data

Extract scholarly works from OpenAlex — a free, open index of over 250 million papers, preprints and books — as clean, structured records. Search any topic like machine learning or crispr gene editing and get titles, authors, institutions, venues, DOIs, citation counts, open-access status, concepts and PDF links, no API key, proxy or browser required. Filter by publication year and open access, and sort by relevance, citations or newest to surface exactly the literature you need. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

📚 What is the OpenAlex Scraper?

It turns any OpenAlex topic search into a structured dataset. Give it a keyword (and optional filters for year range or open access) and it returns every matching work with authors, institutions, publication venue, DOI, citation count and direct links to the landing page and PDF — flattened into clean rows so you can drop them straight into a literature review, citation analysis or research database. It paginates through results with a cursor and uses OpenAlex's polite pool for fast, reliable runs, so a request for hundreds or thousands of works just works.

What data does it extract?

• Identifiers — id (OpenAlex ID) and doi
• Title — the work title
• Publication — publication_year, publication_date, type and language
• Authors — authors, author_count and institutions
• Venue — venue (journal/source name) and venue_type
• Impact — cited_by_count
• Open access — is_open_access and open_access_url
• Links — landing_page_url and pdf_url
• Topics — concepts (top subject tags)
• Run metadata — search_query and scraped_at

⬇️ Input

Search a topic, then narrow by year, open access and sort order:

Field	Description
searchQuery	Topic or keyword, e.g. machine learning, crispr gene editing (required)
fromYear	Only include works published on or after this year
toYear	Only include works published on or before this year
openAccessOnly	true to return only open-access works
sortBy	relevance, citations (most cited) or newest
maxResults	Cap the run (1–10000)

Example input

{
  "searchQuery": "machine learning",
  "fromYear": 2018,
  "openAccessOnly": false,
  "sortBy": "citations",
  "maxResults": 100
}

⬆️ Output

Every work is one clean row (view as a table, or export JSON / CSV / Excel):

{
  "id": "https://openalex.org/W2150555538",
  "doi": "https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010933404324",
  "title": "Random Forests",
  "publication_year": 2001,
  "publication_date": "2001-10-01",
  "type": "article",
  "language": "en",
  "authors": ["Leo Breiman"],
  "author_count": 1,
  "institutions": ["University of California, Berkeley"],
  "venue": "Machine Learning",
  "venue_type": "journal",
  "cited_by_count": 124485,
  "is_open_access": true,
  "open_access_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023/A:1010933404324.pdf",
  "landing_page_url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1010933404324",
  "pdf_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023/A:1010933404324.pdf",
  "concepts": ["Random forest", "Machine learning", "Artificial intelligence"],
  "search_query": "machine learning",
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-26T15:30:00.000Z"
}

💡 Use cases

• 🔍 Literature reviews: gather, rank and export every relevant paper on a topic in one run instead of clicking through pages.
• 📈 Citation & impact analysis: measure cited_by_count across authors, venues and years to spot influential work.
• 🏛️ Research databases: build topic, author or institution corpora with clean metadata and direct PDF links.
• 📊 Bibliometrics & trends: track output, open-access share and concept shifts across fields over time.

❓ FAQ

How do I search academic papers with this Actor? Enter a searchQuery (a topic or keyword), optionally set a fromYear/toYear range, openAccessOnly and a sortBy order, then Run. You get structured works with authors, venue, DOI, citation count and PDF links.

What is OpenAlex? OpenAlex is a free, open catalog of the global research landscape — over 250 million scholarly works, plus their authors, institutions, venues and citation links — and a modern, open replacement for tools like Microsoft Academic Graph.

Do I need an API key? No. The Actor uses the free OpenAlex API with no key, login, proxy or browser. It sends a polite contact email so your runs use OpenAlex's faster pool.

Can I filter to open-access papers only? Yes. Set openAccessOnly to true to keep only works flagged as open access, each with an open_access_url and, where available, a pdf_url.

Can I sort by most cited or newest? Yes. Use sortBy: citations for the most-cited works first or sortBy: newest for the most recent. Note that sorting applies when you choose citations or newest; relevance uses OpenAlex's default ranking.

How many works can it return? Up to your maxResults cap (1–10000). It paginates through results automatically using a cursor.

Does it include PDF and DOI links? Yes. Each record includes the doi, the landing_page_url, and a pdf_url plus open_access_url whenever the source provides them.

Why are some fields empty? OpenAlex does not have every detail for every record — some works lack a DOI, venue, institution or open-access PDF. The Actor returns whatever the source provides.

Can I run it on a schedule or via API? Yes. Schedule recurring runs in Apify, call it via the API/SDK, or connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n to push results into your own tools.

Is scraping OpenAlex data legal? OpenAlex is open data offered for reuse. The Actor reads it through the free public API. Use it responsibly, respect the API's usage guidelines, and follow applicable laws.

🔗 You might also like

• PubMed Scraper — biomedical literature & citations
• arXiv Scraper — 2M+ scientific papers, abstracts & PDFs
• GitHub Repository Intelligence — repo metadata, stars & activity

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Keywords: OpenAlex scraper, OpenAlex API, academic papers scraper, scholarly works, citation data, citation analysis, bibliometrics, literature review tool, research metadata, open access papers, DOI scraper, paper PDF links, author institutions, science of science, research analytics.