---
language:
- en
license: cc0-1.0
task_categories:
- feature-extraction
- text-classification
- question-answering
pretty_name: OpenAlex - Complete Academic Research Database
size_categories:
- 100M<n<1B
source_datasets:
- openalex
tags:
- academic
- research
- scholarly
- citations
- science
- open-access
- parquet
- bibliometrics
- scientometrics
dataset_info:
- config_name: topics
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: description
    dtype: string
  - name: keywords
    dtype: string
  - name: subfield_id
    dtype: string
  - name: subfield_name
    dtype: string
  - name: field_id
    dtype: string
  - name: field_name
    dtype: string
  - name: domain_id
    dtype: string
  - name: domain_name
    dtype: string
  - name: siblings
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: publishers
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: alternate_titles
    dtype: string
  - name: hierarchy_level
    dtype: int32
  - name: parent_publisher
    dtype: string
  - name: country_codes
    dtype: string
  - name: homepage_url
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: h_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: i10_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: lineage
    dtype: string
  - name: roles
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: funders
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: alternate_titles
    dtype: string
  - name: country_code
    dtype: string
  - name: description
    dtype: string
  - name: homepage_url
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: awards_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: h_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: i10_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: roles
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: sources
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: issn_l
    dtype: string
  - name: issn
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: type
    dtype: string
  - name: host_organization
    dtype: string
  - name: host_organization_name
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: is_oa
    dtype: bool
  - name: is_in_doaj
    dtype: bool
  - name: is_core
    dtype: bool
  - name: homepage_url
    dtype: string
  - name: country_code
    dtype: string
  - name: h_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: i10_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: apc_usd
    dtype: int32
  - name: alternate_titles
    dtype: string
  - name: topics
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: institutions
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: ror
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: type
    dtype: string
  - name: country_code
    dtype: string
  - name: homepage_url
    dtype: string
  - name: image_url
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: h_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: i10_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: geo_city
    dtype: string
  - name: geo_region
    dtype: string
  - name: geo_country
    dtype: string
  - name: geo_latitude
    dtype: float64
  - name: geo_longitude
    dtype: float64
  - name: associated_institutions
    dtype: string
  - name: lineage
    dtype: string
  - name: topics
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: roles
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: authors
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: orcid
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name
    dtype: string
  - name: display_name_alternatives
    dtype: string
  - name: works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: h_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: i10_index
    dtype: int32
  - name: two_yr_mean_citedness
    dtype: float64
  - name: affiliations
    dtype: string
  - name: last_known_institutions
    dtype: string
  - name: topics
    dtype: string
  - name: topic_share
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
- config_name: works
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: doi
    dtype: string
  - name: title
    dtype: string
  - name: publication_year
    dtype: int32
  - name: publication_date
    dtype: string
  - name: type
    dtype: string
  - name: language
    dtype: string
  - name: is_retracted
    dtype: bool
  - name: is_paratext
    dtype: bool
  - name: cited_by_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: fwci
    dtype: float64
  - name: referenced_works_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: authors_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: locations_count
    dtype: int32
  - name: is_oa
    dtype: bool
  - name: oa_status
    dtype: string
  - name: oa_url
    dtype: string
  - name: primary_location
    dtype: string
  - name: best_oa_location
    dtype: string
  - name: locations
    dtype: string
  - name: authorships
    dtype: string
  - name: biblio_volume
    dtype: string
  - name: biblio_issue
    dtype: string
  - name: biblio_first_page
    dtype: string
  - name: biblio_last_page
    dtype: string
  - name: primary_topic
    dtype: string
  - name: topics
    dtype: string
  - name: keywords
    dtype: string
  - name: referenced_works
    dtype: string
  - name: related_works
    dtype: string
  - name: abstract_inverted_index
    dtype: string
  - name: ids
    dtype: string
  - name: counts_by_year
    dtype: string
  - name: sustainable_development_goals
    dtype: string
  - name: indexed_in
    dtype: string
  - name: created_date
    dtype: string
  - name: updated_date
    dtype: string
configs:
- config_name: topics
  data_files: "data/topics/*.parquet"
- config_name: publishers
  data_files: "data/publishers/*.parquet"
- config_name: funders
  data_files: "data/funders/*.parquet"
- config_name: sources
  data_files: "data/sources/*.parquet"
- config_name: institutions
  data_files: "data/institutions/*.parquet"
- config_name: authors
  data_files: "data/authors/*.parquet"
- config_name: works
  data_files: "data/works/*.parquet"
---

# OpenAlex: Complete Academic Research Database

The world's scholarly research catalog, converted to analysis-ready Parquet. 114.1M records across 7 entity types.

## Table of Contents

- [What is this?](#what-is-this)
- [Quick start](#quick-start)
- [Entity overview](#entity-overview)
- [How entities connect](#how-entities-connect)
- [Schema reference](#schema-reference)
- [Working with abstracts](#working-with-abstracts)
- [Pipeline details](#pipeline-details)
- [Things to know](#things-to-know)
- [Attribution](#attribution)

## What is this?

[OpenAlex](https://openalex.org) is a free, open catalog of the global research system: papers, authors, institutions, journals, topics, publishers, and funders. It's maintained by [OurResearch](https://ourresearch.org/) as the open replacement for the discontinued Microsoft Academic Graph. The index currently covers over 250 million scholarly works with full citation networks, authorship chains, institutional affiliations, and topic classifications.

This dataset is a straight conversion of the [OpenAlex snapshot](https://docs.openalex.org/download-all-data/openalex-snapshot) (2026-04) from gzipped JSON Lines into sharded, ZSTD-compressed Parquet. **114.1M total records** split into files of up to 1 million rows each. You can query it directly with DuckDB (no download needed), stream it with the `datasets` library, or pull specific entities with `huggingface_hub`.

### File layout

```
data/
  works/
    works-00000.parquet      scholarly works (~1M rows each)
    works-00001.parquet
    ...
  authors/
    authors-00000.parquet    researchers and their metrics
    ...
  sources/
    sources-00000.parquet    journals, repositories, conferences
  institutions/
    institutions-00000.parquet  universities, labs, companies
  topics/
    topics-00000.parquet     research topic taxonomy
  publishers/
    publishers-00000.parquet academic publishers
  funders/
    funders-00000.parquet    funding organizations
```

Nested fields (authorships, locations, topics, etc.) are stored as JSON strings. Use `json_extract()` in DuckDB or `json.loads()` in Python to work with them.

## Quick start

### DuckDB (no download required)

DuckDB can read Parquet files directly from Hugging Face. This is the fastest way to explore:

```sql
-- Most-cited works of all time
SELECT id, title, publication_year, cited_by_count, doi, oa_status
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/works/*.parquet'
WHERE cited_by_count > 1000
ORDER BY cited_by_count DESC
LIMIT 20;
```

```sql
-- Top authors by h-index
SELECT id, display_name, h_index, i10_index, works_count, cited_by_count
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/authors/*.parquet'
ORDER BY h_index DESC
LIMIT 20;
```

```sql
-- Open access rates by year
SELECT publication_year,
       COUNT(*) as total,
       SUM(CASE WHEN is_oa THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as oa_count,
       ROUND(100.0 * SUM(CASE WHEN is_oa THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) / COUNT(*), 1) as oa_pct
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/works/*.parquet'
WHERE publication_year BETWEEN 2000 AND 2025
GROUP BY publication_year
ORDER BY publication_year;
```

```sql
-- Top institutions in a country
SELECT display_name, type, geo_city, works_count, cited_by_count, h_index
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/institutions/*.parquet'
WHERE country_code = 'US'
ORDER BY works_count DESC
LIMIT 20;
```

```sql
-- Extract author affiliations from nested JSON
SELECT id, display_name,
       json_extract_string(last_known_institutions, '$[0].display_name') as institution,
       json_extract_string(last_known_institutions, '$[0].country_code') as country
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/authors/*.parquet'
WHERE last_known_institutions IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY h_index DESC
LIMIT 20;
```

```sql
-- Join works to their first author
SELECT w.title, w.publication_year, w.cited_by_count, a.display_name, a.h_index
FROM 'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/works/*.parquet' w,
     'hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/authors/*.parquet' a
WHERE w.cited_by_count > 5000
  AND a.id = json_extract_string(w.authorships, '$[0].author.id')
ORDER BY w.cited_by_count DESC
LIMIT 20;
```

```sql
-- Citation distribution percentiles
SELECT
    percentile_disc(0.50) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY cited_by_count) AS p50,
    percentile_disc(0.90) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY cited_by_count) AS p90,
    percentile_disc(0.99) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY cited_by_count) AS p99,
    AVG(cited_by_count) AS mean
FROM read_parquet('hf://datasets/open-index/open-alex/data/works/*.parquet');
```

### Python (datasets library)

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

# Stream works without downloading everything
ds = load_dataset("open-index/open-alex", "works", split="train", streaming=True)
for work in ds:
    print(work["id"], work["title"], work["cited_by_count"])

# Load smaller entities into memory
authors = load_dataset("open-index/open-alex", "authors", split="train")
topics = load_dataset("open-index/open-alex", "topics", split="train")
```

### Downloading specific entities

```python
from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download

# Just the small entities (~500 MB total)
snapshot_download(
    "open-index/open-alex",
    repo_type="dataset",
    local_dir="./openalex/",
    allow_patterns=["data/topics/*", "data/publishers/*", "data/funders/*",
                     "data/sources/*", "data/institutions/*"],
)

# For faster downloads:
# pip install huggingface_hub[hf_transfer]
# HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER=1
```

## Entity overview

| Entity | Records | What's in it |
|---|---|---|
| **Topics** | 4.5K | Research topics with hierarchical classification (domain → field → subfield → topic) |
| **Publishers** | 10.7K | Academic publishers with hierarchy levels and country information |
| **Funders** | 32.4K | Research funding organizations with award counts and cross-references |
| **Sources** | 280.7K | Journals, repositories, conferences, and ebook platforms with ISSN, DOAJ status, and APC pricing |
| **Institutions** | 121.5K | Universities, research centers, companies, and government bodies with ROR IDs and geolocation |
| **Authors** | 113.6M | Researchers with ORCID IDs, h-index, affiliations, and publication statistics |
| **Works** | n/a | Scholarly works (articles, books, datasets) with citations, DOIs, topics, authorships, and open access status |

## How entities connect

Works sit at the center. Everything else links through them.

```
                          +---------------+
                          |    Works      |  (central entity)
                          +-------+-------+
                 +----------------+------------------+
                 |                |                   |
          +------v------+  +-----v------+  +---------v--------+
          | Authorships |  |  Locations  |  | Referenced Works  |
          |  (nested)   |  |  (nested)   |  |   (citations)    |
          +------+------+  +-----+------+  +------------------+
                 |              |
          +------v------+  +---v------+
          |   Authors   |  | Sources  |  journals, repos, conferences
          +------+------+  +---+------+
                 |              |
      +----------v------+  +---v--------+
      |  Institutions   |  | Publishers |
      +-----------------+  +------------+

  Topics: domain > field > subfield > topic (4-level hierarchy)
  Funders: linked to works through grants and awards
```

Authorships, locations, and topics are nested as JSON inside works. To join works with their authors, parse the `authorships` field.

## Schema reference

### Topics

Research topics with hierarchical classification (domain → field → subfield → topic).

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `description` | string |
| `keywords` | string |
| `subfield_id` | string |
| `subfield_name` | string |
| `field_id` | string |
| `field_name` | string |
| `domain_id` | string |
| `domain_name` | string |
| `siblings` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

### Publishers

Academic publishers with hierarchy levels and country information.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `alternate_titles` | string |
| `hierarchy_level` | int32 |
| `parent_publisher` | string |
| `country_codes` | string |
| `homepage_url` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `h_index` | int32 |
| `i10_index` | int32 |
| `lineage` | string |
| `roles` | string |
| `counts_by_year` | string |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

**Data completeness** (fields below 100%):

| Field | Fill rate | Est. records |
|---|---|---|
| `alternate_titles` | 10.0% | 1.1K |
| `parent_publisher` | 0.0% | 0 |
| `country_codes` | 90.0% | 9.6K |
| `homepage_url` | 80.0% | 8.6K |
| `counts_by_year` | 90.0% | 9.6K |

### Funders

Research funding organizations with award counts and cross-references.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `alternate_titles` | string |
| `country_code` | string |
| `description` | string |
| `homepage_url` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `awards_count` | int32 |
| `h_index` | int32 |
| `i10_index` | int32 |
| `roles` | string |
| `counts_by_year` | string |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

**Data completeness** (fields below 100%):

| Field | Fill rate | Est. records |
|---|---|---|
| `alternate_titles` | 87.5% | 28.4K |
| `description` | 56.2% | 18.2K |
| `homepage_url` | 53.1% | 17.2K |

### Sources

Journals, repositories, conferences, and ebook platforms with ISSN, DOAJ status, and APC pricing.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `issn_l` | string |
| `issn` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `type` | string |
| `host_organization` | string |
| `host_organization_name` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `is_oa` | bool |
| `is_in_doaj` | bool |
| `is_core` | bool |
| `homepage_url` | string |
| `country_code` | string |
| `h_index` | int32 |
| `i10_index` | int32 |
| `apc_usd` | int32 |
| `alternate_titles` | string |
| `topics` | string |
| `counts_by_year` | string |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

**Data completeness** (fields below 100%):

| Field | Fill rate | Est. records |
|---|---|---|
| `issn_l` | 61.4% | 172.4K |
| `issn` | 61.4% | 172.4K |
| `host_organization` | 25.7% | 72.2K |
| `host_organization_name` | 25.4% | 71.2K |
| `homepage_url` | 26.4% | 74.2K |
| `country_code` | 42.5% | 119.3K |
| `apc_usd` | 3.2% | 9.0K |
| `alternate_titles` | 23.2% | 65.2K |
| `topics` | 92.9% | 260.6K |
| `counts_by_year` | 93.2% | 261.6K |
| `created_date` | 93.2% | 261.6K |

### Institutions

Universities, research centers, companies, and government bodies with ROR IDs and geolocation.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `ror` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `type` | string |
| `country_code` | string |
| `homepage_url` | string |
| `image_url` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `h_index` | int32 |
| `i10_index` | int32 |
| `geo_city` | string |
| `geo_region` | string |
| `geo_country` | string |
| `geo_latitude` | float64 |
| `geo_longitude` | float64 |
| `associated_institutions` | string |
| `lineage` | string |
| `topics` | string |
| `counts_by_year` | string |
| `roles` | string |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

**Data completeness** (fields below 100%):

| Field | Fill rate | Est. records |
|---|---|---|
| `country_code` | 94.2% | 114.5K |
| `homepage_url` | 99.2% | 120.5K |
| `image_url` | 10.7% | 13.1K |
| `geo_region` | 38.0% | 46.2K |
| `associated_institutions` | 32.2% | 39.2K |
| `topics` | 88.4% | 107.5K |
| `counts_by_year` | 86.8% | 105.4K |

### Authors

Researchers with ORCID IDs, h-index, affiliations, and publication statistics.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `orcid` | string |
| `display_name` | string |
| `display_name_alternatives` | string |
| `works_count` | int32 |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `h_index` | int32 |
| `i10_index` | int32 |
| `two_yr_mean_citedness` | float64 |
| `affiliations` | string |
| `last_known_institutions` | string |
| `topics` | string |
| `topic_share` | string |
| `counts_by_year` | string |
| `ids` | string |
| `created_date` | string |
| `updated_date` | string |

**Data completeness** (fields below 100%):

| Field | Fill rate | Est. records |
|---|---|---|
| `orcid` | 7.1% | 8.0M |
| `affiliations` | 44.5% | 50.6M |
| `last_known_institutions` | 39.4% | 44.7M |
| `topics` | 97.2% | 110.5M |
| `topic_share` | 97.2% | 110.5M |
| `counts_by_year` | 99.6% | 113.2M |

### Works

Scholarly works (articles, books, datasets) with citations, DOIs, topics, authorships, and open access status.

| Column | Type |
|---|---|
| `id` | string |
| `doi` | string |
| `title` | string |
| `publication_year` | int32 |
| `publication_date` | string |
| `type` | string |
| `language` | string |
| `is_retracted` | bool |
| `is_paratext` | bool |
| `cited_by_count` | int32 |
| `fwci` | float64 |
| `referenced_works_count` | int32 |
| `authors_count` | int32 |
| `locations_count` | int32 |
| `is_oa` | bool |
| `oa_status` | string |
| `oa_url` | string |
| `pr