# OpenAlex Academic Paper Search (`lulzasaur/openalex-scraper`) Actor

Search and retrieve academic papers, authors, and institutions from OpenAlex. Get citations, DOIs, abstracts, and publication data for 250M+ scholarly works.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/lulzasaur/openalex-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [lulz bot](https://apify.com/lulzasaur) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $10.00 / 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/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#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

## OpenAlex Scraper - Academic Papers & Citations

Scrape academic research data from [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/), a free and open catalog of the world's scholarly papers, researchers, journals, and institutions. Covers 250M+ works.

### Features

- **Works**: Search papers by keyword. Get titles, DOIs, citation counts, abstracts, open access status.
- **Authors**: Search researchers. Get h-index, works count, citation counts, ORCID, affiliations.
- **Institutions**: Search universities and organizations. Get works counts, homepage URLs, ROR IDs.
- **Topics**: Search research topics. Get domain, field, subfield hierarchy.
- Cursor-based pagination for large result sets
- No API key required

### Modes

| Mode | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `works` | Search academic papers and articles |
| `authors` | Search researchers and scholars |
| `institutions` | Search universities and organizations |
| `topics` | Search research topics and fields |

### Input Example

```json
{
    "mode": "works",
    "searchQuery": "transformer attention mechanism",
    "limit": 50
}
```

### Output Fields (Works)

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `title` | string | Paper title |
| `doi` | string | Digital Object Identifier |
| `publicationYear` | number | Year of publication |
| `publicationDate` | string | Full publication date |
| `citedByCount` | number | Number of citations |
| `isOpenAccess` | boolean | Whether paper is open access |
| `oaUrl` | string | Open access URL if available |
| `abstract` | string | Reconstructed abstract |
| `authors` | array | Authors with names, ORCIDs, institutions |
| `concepts` | array | Associated concepts with relevance scores |
| `type` | string | Work type (article, book-chapter, etc.) |
| `sourceUrl` | string | OpenAlex URL |

### Output Fields (Authors)

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `name` | string | Author display name |
| `worksCount` | number | Total number of works |
| `citedByCount` | number | Total citations |
| `hIndex` | number | h-index |
| `orcid` | string | ORCID identifier |
| `institutions` | array | Affiliated institutions |

### Cost

This actor charges $0.005 per result using Pay-Per-Event pricing.

# Actor input Schema

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

What to search: works (papers), authors, institutions, or topics.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Search query. For works: paper titles/abstracts. For authors: author names. For institutions: university/org names.

## `limit` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of results to return.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional proxy configuration.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "works",
  "searchQuery": "machine learning",
  "limit": 50
}
```

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("lulzasaur/openalex-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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("lulzasaur/openalex-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 '{}' |
apify call lulzasaur/openalex-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,lulzasaur/openalex-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/KTuAlPyzlVDVjH9fh/builds/tv76V1Sv6d7UuQiT6/openapi.json