# Europe PMC Articles Scraper (`parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes biomedical literature from Europe PMC by a free-text search query. Returns each article as a flat row with title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, and open-access links.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Integrations, Education
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 89.7% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $7.50 / 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.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### Europe PMC Articles Scraper

**Scrape Europe PMC articles by any search query, up to a million per run.** Each article comes with its title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, open-access flag, and full-text links. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Europe PMC is a free database of over 40 million life-science and biomedical articles, including PubMed, PubMed Central, preprints, and patents. This Actor runs your search query directly against Europe PMC and returns each matching article as a flat row, with no API key or registration needed. It is built for researchers, librarians, and data analysts who need clean, structured article metadata for literature reviews, bibliometrics, or evidence synthesis.

| Who uses it | What they scrape Europe PMC for |
|---|---|
| Academic researchers | Building a corpus of papers for a systematic review or meta-analysis |
| Librarians | Checking coverage of a journal or author in Europe PMC |
| Data analysts | Extracting article metadata for bibliometric or trend analysis |
| Pharma and biotech teams | Monitoring new publications on a drug, target, or disease |

### What it does

This Actor collects Europe PMC articles by search query and returns each one as a flat row with bibliographic metadata and full-text links.

- 🔍 **Search by query:** Use the full Europe PMC query syntax, including field tags like AUTH, JOURNAL, and PUB\_YEAR.
- 📄 **Rich metadata:** Each row includes title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, and open-access flag.
- 🔗 **Full-text links:** Get direct URLs to the full text and PDF when available.
- 📊 **Scalable:** Fetch up to 1,000,000 articles per run for paid users; free preview limited to 10 items.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with Europe PMC data

**📚 Build a literature review corpus.**

A PhD student runs a query like 'cancer AND immunotherapy' with maxItems 5000 to collect all matching articles for screening in a systematic review.

**📈 Track publication trends.**

A research analyst runs monthly queries on a disease term and exports the results to chart the growth of publications over time.

**🔎 Find open-access papers.**

A librarian uses the open-access flag to generate a list of freely available articles on a topic for a reading list.

**🧪 Monitor competitor research.**

A biotech team sets up a scheduled run for a drug target query and reviews new papers each week.

### Why choose this scraper

| | What you get |
|---|---|
| **No API key** | Runs on the public Europe PMC REST API with no registration or key management |
| **Structured output** | Every article is returned as a flat row with consistent field names, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export |
| **Full query power** | Supports the complete Europe PMC query language, including Boolean operators and field tags |
| **Citation data** | Includes citation counts and MeSH terms for downstream analysis |

### How it compares

This Actor focuses on simple, query-based metadata extraction from Europe PMC, while the competitors below offer additional features like full-text scraping, PMID/DOI lookup, or pay-per-result pricing.

| Feature | ParseForge | Europe PMC Scraper - Life-Science Papers & Full Text | Europe PMC Scraper | Europe PMC Biomedical Literature Scraper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search by query | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Full-text and PDF links | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Citation count | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| MeSH terms | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Get article by PMID or DOI | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Not listed |
| Pay per result, no charge for empty runs | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a Europe PMC search query and set the maximum number of articles to return. The query supports the full Europe PMC syntax, so you can filter by author, journal, publication year, MeSH term, or any other field before the Actor even runs. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
 "query": "cancer",
 "maxItems": 10
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "query": "cancer",
 "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.0085 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.85 |
| 1,000 results | $8.50 |
| 10,000 results | $85.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [Europe PMC Articles Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Europe PMC through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**Why am I getting no results?**

Check your query syntax. Europe PMC uses a specific query language. Try a simpler query first, like a single word, and then add filters. Also verify that maxItems is set to at least 1.

**Why did the run stop after 10 articles?**

Free users are limited to a preview of 10 articles. Upgrade to a paid plan to scrape more, up to 1,000,000 per run.

**Why are some fields empty in my results?**

Not all articles have every field. For example, some records may lack a DOI or MeSH terms. This is normal and reflects the source data.

**Can I get the full text of an article?**

This Actor returns links to the full text and PDF, but it does not download the full text. Use a dedicated full-text scraper or the related actors for that.

**Why is my query returning too many results?**

Refine your query with additional filters, such as publication year, journal, or MeSH terms. You can also lower maxItems to limit the output.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I need an API key for Europe PMC? | No. This Actor uses the public Europe PMC REST API, which does not require an API key or registration. |
| What is the maximum number of articles I can scrape? | Free users can preview up to 10 articles. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run. |
| Can I use advanced Europe PMC query syntax? | Yes. The query field accepts the full Europe PMC query language, including Boolean operators, field tags like AUTH, JOURNAL, and PUB\_YEAR, and phrase search. |
| What fields are returned for each article? | Each row includes title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, open-access flag, and full-text links when available. |
| Does this Actor get the full text of articles? | It returns links to the full text and PDF when available, but it does not download the full text itself. For full-text scraping, see the related actors. |
| Can I export the results to Excel or CSV? | Yes. Apify supports export to CSV, JSON, Excel, and XML from the dataset. |
| Is this the same as PubMed? | Europe PMC includes all PubMed records plus additional content like preprints, patents, and agricultural science. It is a superset of PubMed. |
| How do I search by author or journal? | Use field tags in your query, for example 'AUTH:Smith' or 'JOURNAL:Nature'. The full Europe PMC query syntax is supported. |
| Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically? | Yes. You can set up a schedule in Apify to run the Actor daily, weekly, or at any interval. |
| What happens if my query returns no results? | The run will finish with an empty dataset. You will not be charged for the run if you are on a pay-per-result plan. |

### Related actors

Browse the full [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) for more scrapers.

🆘 **Need help?** Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Europe PMC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

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

Europe PMC search query.

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

Free users. Limited to 10 items (preview). Paid users. Optional, max 1,000,000.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "cancer",
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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": "cancer",
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-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": "cancer",
    "maxItems": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-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": "cancer",
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-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/OXyBw4exAR6iCH9kG/builds/vjZqJL07l0NbjHZa8/openapi.json