# OpenAlex API — Scholarly Works & Citation Graphs | Anysite

> 19 endpoints over the largest fully open scholarly graph — 250M+ works, 90M authors, institutions, journals, funders, and citation networks as clean JSON.

URL: https://anysite.io/sources/openalex/
Canonical: https://anysite.io/sources/openalex/
Language: en
Generated: 2026-10-01

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// Source · Business Intelligence

# OpenAlex API — The Full Scholarly Graph

250 million works, 90 million authors, and the citation graph that connects them — the largest fully open scholarly graph, queried as typed endpoints across 9 entity types.

[Start for free](https://app.anysite.io/register?lang=en) 7-day free trial

## What You Can Pull From OpenAlex

/api/openalex/works Get a single work (paper, book, dataset, preprint) by OpenAlex W-id, DOI, pmid:, or mag: identifier

/api/openalex/works/search Search 250M+ works by query with filters: publication date, type, OA status, author, institution, funder, topic and citation count

/api/openalex/works/citations List the works that cite a given work (forward citation graph)

/api/openalex/works/references List the works referenced by a given work (backward citation graph)

/api/openalex/authors Get an author by OpenAlex A-id or ORCID: names, affiliations, works & citation counts, h-index and top topics

/api/openalex/authors/search Search authors by name and filters

/api/openalex/institutions Get an institution by OpenAlex I-id or ROR: name, country, type, associated works and citation metrics

/api/openalex/institutions/search Search institutions by name and filters

/api/openalex/sources Get a source (journal, repository, conference series) by OpenAlex S-id or ISSN

/api/openalex/sources/search Search sources (journals, repositories) by query and filters

/api/openalex/concepts Get a concept by its identifier

/api/openalex/concepts/search Search concepts by query

/api/openalex/topics Get a topic by its identifier

/api/openalex/topics/search Search topics by query

/api/openalex/funders Get a funder by its identifier

/api/openalex/funders/search Search funders by query and filters

/api/openalex/publishers Get a publisher by its identifier

/api/openalex/publishers/search Search publishers by query and filters

/api/openalex/autocomplete Autocomplete OpenAlex entities (works, authors, institutions, sources, concepts…) from a partial query string

## What Comes Back

```
{
  "id": "W3177828909",
  "doi": "10.1038/s41586-021-03964-9",
  "title": "Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold",
  "publication_year": 2021,
  "cited_by_count": 31245,
  "is_oa": true,
  "oa_status": "hybrid",
  "fwci": 148.2,
  "authorships": [{ "author": "John Jumper", "institution": "DeepMind" }],
  "primary_location": { "source": "Nature", "pdf_url": "https://…" }
}
```

## Built for These Jobs

[Science Research & Reviews](https://anysite.io/use-cases/science-research/) [Due Diligence](https://anysite.io/use-cases/due-diligence/) [Agentic Products](https://anysite.io/use-cases/agentic-products/)

## Query the Open Scholarly Graph

Works, authors, institutions, and citations in one ask — 19 endpoints here, 900+ sources on the same key.

[Start for free](https://app.anysite.io/register?lang=en)

## Common Questions

What identifiers can I use to look up a work?

Four formats: an OpenAlex W-id, a DOI, a PubMed ID prefixed with pmid:, or a Microsoft Academic Graph ID prefixed with mag:. Pass whichever you have — the endpoint normalises them automatically.

Does the API return open-access PDF links?

Yes. Each work record includes is_oa, an oa_status (gold, green, hybrid, bronze, closed), an oa_url for the best free version, and a best_oa_location object with the PDF and landing-page URLs.

How fresh is the data?

OpenAlex updates its index daily from Crossref, PubMed, ORCID, ROR, and other registries; new records typically appear within 24–48 hours. Historical coverage goes back centuries for older publications.