# OpenAlex Scholar Search & Research Metadata (`scrupulous_waterbird_m4w/openalex-scholar`) Actor

Search 200M+ scholarly works, authors, concepts, institutions, and venues through OpenAlex's keyless public API. Export citations, open-access status, concepts, and normalized research metadata.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scrupulous\_waterbird\_m4w/openalex-scholar.md
- **Developed by:** [Mori](https://apify.com/scrupulous_waterbird_m4w) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage

## 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 Scholar Search

Search 200M+ scholarly works, authors, concepts, institutions, and venues from OpenAlex's keyless public API. Unified metadata schema with citations, open-access status, and concept scoring..

### What it does

- Extracts ITEM\_TYPE from URL\_LIST
- Outputs structured JSON (SCHEMA\_LINK)
- Handles pagination, retries, proxy rotation out of the box

### Input

| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `startUrls` | yes | List of URLs to scrape |
| `maxRequestsPerRun` | no | Cap on total requests (default 100) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | no | Proxy settings (default: Apify Proxy) |

### Output

One record per source page:

```json
{
  "url": "...",
  "title": "...",
  "items": [...],
  "scrapedAt": "ISO-8601"
}
```

### Pricing

Free tier: 100 runs/month. Pro: $X/mo.

### Limitations

- Static HTML only (no JS rendering — use the playwright template for SPAs).
- Single-domain by default. Set `enqueueLinks` globs to crawl.

### Changelog

- 0.1.0 — initial release.

# Actor input Schema

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

Full-text search query. OpenAlex ranks results by relevance to this string.

## `entityType` (type: `string`):

Which OpenAlex collection to search. 'works' indexes 200M+ scholarly papers; 'authors' indexes researchers; 'concepts' indexes hierarchical topics; 'institutions' indexes universities/orgs; 'venues' indexes journals/conferences.

## `perPage` (type: `integer`):

Number of records per page (1-200). OpenAlex caps per-page at 200.

## `page` (type: `integer`):

1-indexed page number for pagination through result sets > perPage.

## `yearFrom` (type: `integer`):

Filter to records published on or after this year. 0 = no filter (works/authors only).

## `yearTo` (type: `integer`):

Filter to records published on or before this year. 0 = no filter (works/authors only).

## `isOa` (type: `boolean`):

Restrict to open-access records with a downloadable PDF URL (works only).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "transformer attention",
  "entityType": "works",
  "perPage": 10,
  "page": 1,
  "yearFrom": 0,
  "yearTo": 0,
  "isOa": false
}
```

# 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("scrupulous_waterbird_m4w/openalex-scholar").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("scrupulous_waterbird_m4w/openalex-scholar").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).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 scrupulous_waterbird_m4w/openalex-scholar --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=scrupulous_waterbird_m4w/openalex-scholar",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/AY0NpuFQO6eaZCbB1/builds/vmmwXPfnT82cBpKrC/openapi.json