Academic Papers Aggregator (Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed, arXiv)

Academic Papers Aggregator (Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed, arXiv) pulls structured data from Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed E-utilities and arXiv and returns it as a clean dataset you can export as JSON, CSV or Excel. It runs one query against four scholarly indexes, merges the hits on DOI (falling back to a normalised title), and reports which indexes found each paper plus the highest citation count reported, so a literature search does not have to be repeated four times.

No API key, no login. Click Start and it works with the prefilled input.

What does Academic Papers Aggregator (Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed, arXiv) do?

It queries Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed E-utilities and arXiv and returns one row per record, with only the fields that matter. Runs on the Apify platform, so you get an API endpoint, scheduling, monitoring and integrations (Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, webhooks) without maintaining any infrastructure.

Why use it?

• Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed E-utilities and arXiv data without the plumbing: no proxy setup, no pagination code, no scraping maintenance.
• Schedule it to monitor changes daily or weekly and trigger alerts on new records.
• Feed it straight into a spreadsheet, database, or an AI agent via the Apify API or MCP server.
• Runs in seconds and returns a typed dataset that is ready for analysis.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free / Start.
2. Leave the default input to see a sample run, or type your own values (see Input below).
3. Press Start and wait a few seconds.
4. Open the Output tab and download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	"CRISPR gene editing"	Topic, title fragment or author to search for across every selected index.
sources	string	"all"	Which indexes to query. All four are merged and deduplicated into one dataset. One of: 'all', 'crossref', 'openalex', 'pubmed', 'arxiv'.
fromYear	integer	0	Only return papers published in this year or later. 0 disables the filter.
maxResults	integer	25	Maximum number of merged, deduplicated papers to return.

Example input:

{
  "query": "CRISPR gene editing",
  "sources": "all",
  "fromYear": 0,
  "maxResults": 5
}

Output

One item per record. Sample:

{
  "title": "CRISPR gene-editing tested in a person for the first time",
  "doi": "10.1038/nature.2016.20988",
  "authors": "Hyunjin Shim; Jane Doe",
  "year": 2016,
  "venue": "Nature",
  "publisher": "Nature Portfolio"
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Data fields

Field	Type	Meaning
title	string	Title
doi	string	DOI
authors	string	Authors
year	number	Year
venue	string	Venue
publisher	string	Publisher
cited_by_count	number	Citations
type	string	Type
open_access	string	Open Access
sources_found	string	Found In
source_count	number	Source Count
sources_failed	string	Sources Failed
url	string	Link
abstract	string	Abstract
retrieved_at	string	Retrieved At

How much does it cost to run?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: you pay per result item pushed to the dataset, and nothing for an empty run. Each run is a few seconds of compute, so typical costs are fractions of a cent per run, and the Apify free tier covers plenty of testing.

Tips and advanced options

• Raise maxResults for a bigger pull; the Actor pages through the source for you.
• Schedule it (e.g. every morning) and combine with a webhook to get only the new records.
• Add the Actor to an AI agent through the Apify MCP server for natural-language queries.

FAQ, disclaimers and support

• Is this legal? It uses publicly available data from Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed E-utilities and arXiv. You are responsible for how you use the data and for complying with the source's terms.
• It returned nothing? Try a topic such as "CRISPR gene editing" or "large language models". Setting Sources to all gives the widest coverage.
• Something broken? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Data sources change and get fixed quickly.
• Need a custom variant (extra fields, a different source, a scheduled report)? Get in touch through the Issues tab.