Research Topic Institutions and Authors

Give a research topic as a keyword or an OpenAlex topic ID, and get the institutions and authors with the most works on it. Each row is one institution or author, ranked by works on the topic, with its ROR or ORCID, total works, citations, h-index, and its newest papers on the topic. You pay per row, and Mamba Labs pays the platform costs.

Features

• Ranked by works on your topic. Rows count the works matching your topic and filters, so the first row is the most active institution or author on that topic, not the largest overall.
• Institution rows. Name, ROR, country, city, type, and homepage.
• Author rows. Name, ORCID where OpenAlex holds one, and last known institutions.
• Newest papers on the topic. Up to 10 per row, with date, DOI, and citation count.
• Filters. Year range, country, and institution type, such as companies only.
• One free summary row per topic, with the works matched and the rows written.
• Restart aware. If Apify moves the run to another host, it resumes from its saved position.

How the data is read

The actor calls the OpenAlex API directly, from one address. OpenAlex data is CC0. There is no scraping, no login, no AI, and no other developer's actor.

OpenAlex sets a daily budget per caller:

• With no key, the run shares 0.10 USD a day of OpenAlex usage with everyone on its address, and OpenAlex can limit keyless search under load. The actor waits when OpenAlex asks, and does not rotate addresses to get a larger budget. If the budget is used up, you get a free row saying so, and rows already written stay.
• With your own free key from openalex.org/settings/api, the run uses your 1 USD a day. Put it in openalex_api_key. It is sent in a header and is never stored or logged.

A keyword row with recent papers uses about 0.001 USD of that budget, and each topic adds about 0.002 USD. So 25 institutions and 25 authors use about 0.05 USD. With recent_papers set to 0, the same run uses about 0.003 USD. This budget belongs to OpenAlex and is separate from your Apify charges. The key path was tested with fixtures and a refused key: Mamba Labs used no key of its own, so the first buyer's key is the live test.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
topics	array		Keywords such as perovskite solar cells, or OpenAlex topic IDs such as T10247, up to 20. Each one gets its own ranked rows.
row_types	array		institutions, authors, or both. Default both.
max_institutions	string	25	Institution rows per topic, up to 200. Default 25.
max_authors	string	25	Author rows per topic, up to 200. Default 25.
recent_papers	string	3	Newest papers on the topic to add to each row, 0 to 10. Default 3. 0 skips them and uses far less of the OpenAlex budget.
from_year	string		Count works published from this year. Default 5 years before the current year.
to_year	string		Count works published up to this year. Default no end.
countries	array		Two letter codes such as US or DE. Institution rows must be in one of these. Author rows come from works with an institution in one of these, and the author may be elsewhere.
institution_types	array		Any of education, healthcare, company, archive, nonprofit, government, facility, funder, other. Institution rows must be one of these. Author rows come from works with such an institution.
search_scope	string	title_abstract	title_abstract (default): a keyword must be in the title or abstract. fulltext: also the full text where OpenAlex holds it, which matches more and less precisely. Ignored for topic IDs.
openalex_api_key	string		Optional. Your own free key from openalex.org/settings/api, with its own 1 USD a day of OpenAlex usage. Without one, the run shares a 0.10 USD daily budget with everyone on its address and keyword search can be limited. Never stored or logged.
max_charge_usd	string		Optional. The run stops before a charge that would pass this amount. Summary rows are always returned.

Output

Field	Type	What it holds
row_type	string	One of: institution, author, topic_summary, run_summary. run_summary is the one free row written when the input is refused.
topic	string	The keyword or topic ID from your input.
rank	integer	Position on this topic by works on the topic, per row type. 1 has the most.
openalex_id	string	The OpenAlex ID, I for an institution, A for an author.
openalex_url	string	The record's page on OpenAlex.
name	string	The institution or author name as OpenAlex holds it.
works_on_topic	integer	Works matching the topic and filters that list this institution or author.
works_count_total	integer	All works OpenAlex holds for this record.
cited_by_count_total	integer	All citations OpenAlex counts for this record.
h_index	integer	OpenAlex h-index for this record across all its works, not only this topic.
country_code	string	Institution rows: its country. Author rows: the country of the first last known institution.
city	string	Institution rows: the city OpenAlex holds.
institution_type	string	Institution rows: education, company, government, and so on.
ror	string	Institution rows: the Research Organization Registry address.
homepage_url	string	Institution rows: the homepage OpenAlex holds.
orcid	string	Author rows: the ORCID address where OpenAlex holds one.
last_known_institutions	array	Author rows: institution names from the author's latest works.
recent_papers	array	Newest works on the topic for this row: title, publication_date, cited_by_count, doi, openalex_id. Null when recent_papers is 0.
works_matched	integer	topic_summary: works matching the topic and filters.
institutions_returned	integer	topic_summary: institution rows written.
authors_returned	integer	topic_summary: author rows written.
row_status	string	ok, or why this row carries no data: no_results, no_change, partial, blocked, or error.
error_reason	string	Why the row is not ok. A refused input reads input_invalid: followed by what to fix.
billable_events_json	string	What this row was billed as, for example {"entity-row":1}. {} means free.
scraped_at	string	When the row was written, UTC.

Pricing

Pay per event. Topic summaries, refused or failed topics, and refused input are free.

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold
entity-row, one institution or author row	$0.006	$0.0057	$0.0054	$0.0051
apify-actor-start, once per run (one per GB of memory; the default 256 MB is one)	$0.003	$0.003	$0.003	$0.003

Per 1,000 rows of entity-row: $6.00 on the free plan, $5.10 on Gold.

Free plan cap: 1.50 USD of evaluation a month, about 250 rows. Any paid Apify plan removes the cap, and it resets on the 1st. The run stops before a charge that passes your maximum charge per run in Apify or your max_charge_usd input.

Mamba Labs pays the platform costs of your run, Apify proxy traffic included.

Usage examples

Top institutions and authors on a topic.

{
  "topics": ["perovskite solar cells"],
  "max_institutions": "10",
  "max_authors": "10",
  "recent_papers": "2"
}

Companies publishing on a topic in Germany since 2023, with no papers.

{
  "topics": ["solid state batteries"],
  "row_types": ["institutions"],
  "countries": ["DE"],
  "institution_types": ["company"],
  "from_year": "2023",
  "recent_papers": "0"
}

Clay. Number inputs are text fields, which is what Clay sends. A list input takes a JSON list, so put the column inside a one item list.

MCP. The Mamba Labs MCP server @mambalabsdev/mcp-research-topic-institutions-authors exposes this actor to Claude and other MCP clients.

Limitations

• Rows hold only what OpenAlex publishes. There is no email or phone for any author, and this actor does not look for them.
• Counts and affiliations are OpenAlex's own, and it can merge or split people with similar names. Check an author's ORCID and papers before relying on a row.
• Institution counts attach to the exact institution on each work, so a parent body and its institutes are separate rows.
• With countries or institution_types, author rows come from works with such an institution, and the author may be elsewhere.
• A keyword matches titles and abstracts by default, so a broad word brings in unrelated works. An OpenAlex topic ID is narrower.
• Each topic ranks at most 200 institutions and 200 authors. With a country or type filter, institutions are chosen from the top 200 on the topic before filtering, so fewer rows can return.
• h_index, total works, and total citations cover the whole record, not only this topic.

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