OpenAlex API Guide

Overview

OpenAlex is a free, open catalog of the global research system. It indexes over 250 million scholarly works, 90 million authors, 100,000 institutions, and 65,000 concepts. Created by the nonprofit OurResearch as a replacement for Microsoft Academic Graph, OpenAlex provides comprehensive bibliometric data for academic research analysis.

The API serves as a powerful tool for researchers conducting systematic literature reviews, bibliometric analyses, and research landscape mapping. It covers works across all academic disciplines, linking papers to their authors, institutions, concepts, and citation networks. Each entity in OpenAlex has a persistent identifier (OpenAlex ID) and is enriched with metadata from CrossRef, ORCID, ROR, and other authoritative sources.

OpenAlex is entirely free to use. No API key is required, though providing a contact email in the mailto parameter grants access to the polite pool with faster response times and higher rate limits.

Authentication

No authentication required. For better rate limits and access to the polite pool, include your email in requests:

https://api.openalex.org/works?mailto=your@email.com

The polite pool provides significantly faster responses and is recommended for all production usage.