# Zenodo Scraper - Research Datasets, DOIs, Papers & Software (`ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper`) Actor

$1/1K 🔥 Fast Zenodo scraper! Datasets, papers & software — DOI, creators, downloads, keywords & license. No key. JSON, CSV, Excel or API in seconds. Search & pull thousands of research records for open science ⚡

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ninhothedev](https://apify.com/ninhothedev) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Zenodo Research Records Scraper

Scrape **Zenodo** research records - datasets, papers, software, posters and more - straight from Zenodo's clean public JSON API. Get **DOIs, titles, creators, keywords, licenses, download and view counts** in structured JSON, CSV or Excel. **No API key. No login. Datacenter-friendly.**

Zenodo (operated by CERN) hosts millions of open-access research outputs. This actor turns its search API into a tidy dataset you can pipe into a spreadsheet, a database, or an AI pipeline.

***

### What it does

- Full-text **search** across Zenodo's entire corpus (titles, descriptions, creators, keywords).
- Returns one clean row per record with the fields researchers actually need.
- Handles pagination automatically up to your `maxItems` limit.
- Uses a real Chrome TLS fingerprint (curl\_cffi) so it runs fine on **datacenter proxies** - no residential proxy required.

### Example input

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "machine learning",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `mode` | select | Scraping mode (`search`). |
| `query` | string | Full-text query. Supports Elasticsearch syntax, e.g. `title:"climate change"`. |
| `maxItems` | integer | Max records to scrape (default 100, max 1000). |

### Example output

```json
{
  "id": "21427793",
  "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.21427793",
  "title": "A Machine Learning Dataset for Climate Modelling",
  "creators": ["Doe, Jane", "Smith, John"],
  "publication_date": "2026-07-01",
  "resource_type": "Dataset",
  "description": "A rich dataset for ML...",
  "keywords": ["machine learning", "climate"],
  "license": "cc-by-4.0",
  "downloads": 1234,
  "views": 5678,
  "url": "https://zenodo.org/records/21427793",
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-18T12:00:00+00:00"
}
```

Every field is nullable - missing metadata simply comes back as `null` instead of breaking your run.

### Pricing

Runs on Apify's pay-per-usage model. This actor is lightweight (512 MB, clean JSON API) so it costs roughly **~$1 per 1,000 records** in platform usage - typically less. No third-party API fees, because Zenodo's API is free and key-less.

### Use cases

- **Open research discovery** - monitor new datasets and software in your field.
- **Dataset harvesting** - build a catalogue of open datasets by topic for reuse.
- **Bibliometrics** - analyse download/view metrics, licenses and resource types at scale.
- **AI training data** - assemble metadata corpora of open-access research for RAG and model training.

### Comparison

| | This actor | Manual API scripting | Web scraping the HTML site |
|---|---|---|---|
| API key needed | No | No | No |
| WAF/403 handling | Built-in (Chrome impersonation) | You build it | Fragile |
| Structured, nullable output | Yes | You build it | You build it |
| Pagination | Automatic | Manual | Manual |
| Export CSV/Excel/JSON | Yes (Apify dataset) | No | No |

### Related actors

Building a research-metadata pipeline? Combine this with:

- [DataCite Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/datacite-scraper)
- [Crossref Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/crossref-scraper)
- [DOAJ Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/doaj-scraper)
- [arXiv Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/arxiv-scraper)

**Keywords:** zenodo scraper, research datasets, open access, DOI scraper, bibliometrics, CERN, academic metadata, scholarly API, dataset harvesting, AI training data.

***

*Not affiliated with Zenodo or CERN. Respect Zenodo's terms of use and rate limits.*

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Scraping mode. Currently 'search' runs a paginated full-text query against Zenodo's records API.

## `query` (type: `string`):

Full-text query passed to Zenodo (matches titles, descriptions, creators, keywords). Supports Elasticsearch query syntax, e.g. 'title:"climate change"' or 'machine learning'.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of records to scrape across all pages. Capped at 1000 to keep runs fast and cheap.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "machine learning",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "machine learning"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "query": "machine learning" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "machine learning"
}' |
apify call ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,ninhothedev/zenodo-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/P1aB5x2qVr2gVda5X/builds/I9oST9cjz5gFTMrxk/openapi.json