Quickstart

Query the OpenAlex dataset in 5 minutes

Let’s use the OpenAlex API to find journal articles published by authors at Stanford University between 2010 and 2020. No login or API key required for basic queries.

Install a JSON viewer extension like JSONVue to make API responses easier to read in your browser.

1. Find an institution

Search for Stanford University using the institutions endpoint:

https://api.openalex.org/institutions?search=stanford

The first result has the ID we need:

{
  "id": "https://openalex.org/I97018004",
  "ror": "https://ror.org/00f54p054",
  "display_name": "Stanford University",
  "country_code": "US",
  "type": "education"
}

2. Get a single entity

Fetch the full institution record by ID:

https://api.openalex.org/institutions/I97018004

This works for any entity type—works, authors, sources, etc.

3. Find works from Stanford

Filter works to show those with at least one Stanford author:

https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=institutions.id:I97018004

4. Filter by year and sort

Narrow to 2010-2020 and sort newest first:

https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=institutions.id:I97018004,publication_year:2010-2020&sort=publication_date:desc

5. Group by year

Get counts per year:

https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=institutions.id:I97018004,publication_year:2010-2020&group_by=publication_year

Response:

[
  { "key": "2020", "key_display_name": "2020", "count": 18627 },
  { "key": "2019", "key_display_name": "2019", "count": 15933 },
  { "key": "2017", "key_display_name": "2017", "count": 14789 }
]

6. Semantic search (optional)

Find conceptually related works using AI:

https://api.openalex.org/works?search.semantic=machine+learning+in+healthcare&api_key=YOUR_KEY

This finds papers about “AI-driven diagnosis” even if they don’t use the exact words “machine learning.”

Semantic search requires an API key. Basic filtering and searching is free.

7. Download full text (optional)

For works with available content:

PDF

https://content.openalex.org/works/W3038568908.pdf?api_key=YOUR_KEY

https://content.openalex.org/works/W3038568908.grobid-xml?api_key=YOUR_KEY

Check the has_content.pdf filter to find downloadable works.

Next steps

Works

Journal articles, books, datasets, theses

Authors

Researchers and their publications

Filtering

Narrow results with 150+ filter options

Recipes

Common API patterns and examples

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