Academic Paper Search - OpenAlex, Crossref & arXiv (DOI, Abstracts, Citations)

Search scholarly papers across OpenAlex (250M+ works), Crossref (the DOI registry) and arXiv (preprints) in one run and get clean JSON / CSV / Excel: title, DOI, authors, institutions, year, journal, publisher, citation count, open-access status, PDF link and the full abstract. Uses only the official open APIs - no login, no API key, no browser, no proxies - so 50 papers take about 2 seconds.

Who uses it

• Researchers & students: build a literature review list for a topic in seconds, sorted by citations or newest first.
• AI / RAG builders: feed abstracts and open-access PDF links into an LLM, vector DB or n8n / Make / Zapier pipeline.
• R&D, pharma & patent teams: monitor new publications on a technology every week (sortBy: date, fromYear).
• Sales & BD to academia: find which institutions and authors publish on your topic.
• Analysts & journalists: measure research activity and the most-cited work on a subject.

Input

Field	Description
queries	Topics / keywords. Each one is searched in every selected source.
sources	openalex, crossref, arxiv (default OpenAlex + Crossref).
maxResultsPerSource	1-5000 per query per source (default 25).
sortBy	relevance, date (newest first) or citations (most cited).
fromYear, toYear	Publication year range (0 = no limit).
openAccessOnly	Only open-access papers.
includeAbstract	Abstracts (OpenAlex reconstructs them from its index; Crossref has them for many publishers; arXiv always).
dedupeByDoi	Skip the same paper found in a second source (not charged).

Example:

{ "queries": ["retrieval augmented generation", "CRISPR base editing"], "sources": ["openalex", "arxiv"], "sortBy": "citations", "fromYear": 2022, "maxResultsPerSource": 200 }

Output (one row per paper)

{
  "query": "CRISPR base editing",
  "source": "openalex",
  "title": "Unconstrained genome targeting with near-PAMless engineered CRISPR-Cas9 variants",
  "doi": "10.1126/science.aba8853",
  "url": "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba8853",
  "pdfUrl": "https://...pdf",
  "authors": ["Russell T. Walton", "Kathleen A. Christie", "..."],
  "institutions": ["Harvard University", "Massachusetts General Hospital"],
  "publicationYear": 2020,
  "publicationDate": "2020-04-17",
  "venue": "Science",
  "publisher": "American Association for the Advancement of Science",
  "type": "article",
  "citedByCount": 1230,
  "isOpenAccess": true,
  "oaStatus": "green",
  "topics": ["CRISPR and Genetic Engineering"],
  "abstract": "Manipulation of DNA by CRISPR-Cas enzymes requires ...",
  "openalexId": "https://openalex.org/W...",
  "arxivId": null
}

A RUN_SUMMARY record (papers per source, duplicates, failures) is saved in the key-value store.

Pricing (pay per event)

• $0.001 per paper saved (paper) - $1 per 1,000 papers.
• Tiny start fee per run (apify-actor-start).
• Duplicates and failed source requests are not charged. Set "Maximum cost per run" to cap spend - the run stops gracefully and keeps results already saved.

Notes

• Data comes from the public OpenAlex, Crossref and arXiv APIs (polite pool, identified user agent). Not affiliated with OpenAlex / OurResearch, Crossref or arXiv / Cornell University.
• Abstract and citation coverage depends on the source and publisher. Full-text PDFs are only linked, not downloaded.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. Can I schedule a weekly alert for new papers? Yes: sortBy: date, set fromYear to the current year, and add a schedule in Apify. Google Scholar? Not included - it has no official API. OpenAlex covers most of the same literature with open data.