OpenAlex Research Intelligence

Extract research intelligence from the official OpenAlex API without browser scraping. Use search terms, OpenAlex work IDs, author IDs, institution IDs, or concept IDs to produce flattened dataset rows for works, authors, and publication sources.

Use cases

Use this actor for academic / bibliometric research — query 250M+ scholarly works by topic, author, institution, or citation. Auth-free, official-API-first, with a stable output schema and documented source compliance.

Inputs

Field	Default	Notes
searchTerms	[]	Research queries for OpenAlex works.
workIds	[]	OpenAlex work IDs or URLs.
authorIds	[]	OpenAlex author IDs.
institutionIds	[]	OpenAlex institution IDs.
conceptIds	[]	OpenAlex concept IDs.
fromDate / toDate	empty	Publication date filters in YYYY-MM-DD.
sort	cited_by_count:desc	Citation, publication date, or relevance sort.
limitPerSource	25	Works fetched per search/filter source.
maxWorks	100	Global unique work cap.
includeAbstract	false	Reconstruct abstract text from OpenAlex inverted index when available.
mailto	empty	Optional polite-pool email parameter for OpenAlex.
delivery	dataset	dataset or webhook.
dryRun	false	Skip dataset/webhook delivery.

At least one of searchTerms, workIds, authorIds, institutionIds, or conceptIds is required.

Dataset Rows

work_summary

• title, DOI, OpenAlex ID, publication year/date, type
• citation count, open-access status, retraction flag
• primary source, publisher, landing page, PDF URL
• topics, concepts, countries, institutions

author_signal

• work ID/title, author name and OpenAlex ID
• author order/position, corresponding author flag
• affiliated institutions and countries

source_summary

• work ID/title, journal or source name
• source type, ISSN, host organization, open-access source flag

Example Input

{
  "searchTerms": ["large language models", "retrieval augmented generation"],
  "fromDate": "2024-01-01",
  "sort": "cited_by_count:desc",
  "limitPerSource": 10,
  "maxWorks": 20,
  "includeAbstract": false,
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false
}

Sample output

Each run produces structured dataset rows (see the Dataset Rows section above for the field list). Run the actor once with the example input to see a live sample before scheduling.

Local Development

npm install
npm test
node src/index.js

output/result.json contains the full payload. Apify dataset delivery writes flattened rows.

Limitations

• OpenAlex coverage is broad but not identical to Crossref, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, or publisher APIs.
• Citation counts and metadata can lag source publications.
• Relevance sort is used only for search sources; non-search filters fall back to citation sort.
• includeAbstract can increase payload size substantially.

Input Examples

Example: Single-target audit

{
  "targets": [
    "example-target-1"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerTarget": 30
}

Example: Bulk portfolio

{
  "targets": [
    "target-1",
    "target-2",
    "target-3"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerTarget": 50,
  "snapshotKey": "openalex-research-intelligence-state"
}

Example: Recurring delta watch

{
  "targets": [
    "target-1"
  ],
  "snapshotKey": "openalex-research-intelligence-state",
  "emitChangedOnly": true
}