Research Topic Institutions and Authors

v1.0.2$0.006/rowEnrichment

Last updated November 8, 2026

Give a research topic and get the institutions and authors with the most works on it, from OpenAlex: one ranked row each with ROR, ORCID, counts, h-index, and their newest papers on the topic. For research scouting and academic lead lists.

Install

bash
npx @mambalabsdev/mcp-research-topic-institutions-authors

Every tool here also runs hosted, with no install at all, through Apify's MCP endpoint.

Features

  • Keyword or OpenAlex topic ID in, one ranked row per institution or author out.
  • ROR, ORCID, total works, citations, and h-index on each row.
  • Newest papers on the topic on each row, with DOI and citation count.
  • Filter by year, country, and institution type.
  • Pay per event: Institution or author row at $0.006.

Input

topicsarrayoptional

Keywords such as perovskite solar cells, or OpenAlex topic IDs such as T10247, up to 20. Each one gets its own ranked rows.

row_typesarrayoptional

institutions, authors, or both. Default both.

max_institutionsstringoptional

Institution rows per topic, up to 200. Default 25.

max_authorsstringoptional

Author rows per topic, up to 200. Default 25.

recent_papersstringoptional

Newest papers on the topic to add to each row, 0 to 10. Default 3. 0 skips them and uses far less of the OpenAlex budget.

from_yearstringoptional

Count works published from this year. Default 5 years before the current year.

to_yearstringoptional

Count works published up to this year. Default no end.

countriesarrayoptional

Two letter codes such as US or DE. Institution rows must be in one of these. Author rows come from works with an institution in one of these, and the author may be elsewhere.

institution_typesarrayoptional

Any of education, healthcare, company, archive, nonprofit, government, facility, funder, other. Institution rows must be one of these. Author rows come from works with such an institution.

search_scopestringoptional

title_abstract (default): a keyword must be in the title or abstract. fulltext: also the full text where OpenAlex holds it, which matches more and less precisely. Ignored for topic IDs.

openalex_api_keystringoptional

Optional. Your own free key from openalex.org/settings/api, with its own 1 USD a day of OpenAlex usage. Without one, the run shares a 0.10 USD daily budget with everyone on its address and keyword search can be limited. Never stored or logged.

max_charge_usdstringoptional

Optional. The run stops before a charge that would pass this amount. Summary rows are always returned.

Output schema

json
{
  "row_type": "string",
  "topic": "string",
  "rank": "integer",
  "openalex_id": "string",
  "openalex_url": "string",
  "name": "string",
  "works_on_topic": "integer",
  "works_count_total": "integer",
  "cited_by_count_total": "integer",
  "h_index": "integer",
  "country_code": "string",
  "city": "string",
  "institution_type": "string",
  "ror": "string",
  "homepage_url": "string",
  "orcid": "string",
  "last_known_institutions": "array",
  "recent_papers": "array",
  "works_matched": "integer",
  "institutions_returned": "integer",
  "authors_returned": "integer",
  "row_status": "string",
  "error_reason": "string",
  "billable_events_json": "string",
  "scraped_at": "string"
}

Pricing

$0.006per row
EventFree plan price
Institution or author row$0.006
Actor Start$0.003

Pay per event on the Apify platform. Paid Apify plans pay less per event. No subscription, no seat license.

On the Apify free plan the actor stops at $1.50 of charges a month, about 250 rows. Any paid Apify plan removes the cap.

Limits

  • Rows hold only what OpenAlex publishes. There is no email or phone for any author, and this actor does not look for them.
  • Counts and affiliations are OpenAlex's own, and it can merge or split people with similar names. Check an author's ORCID and papers before relying on a row.
  • Institution counts attach to the exact institution on each work, so a parent body and its institutes are separate rows.
  • With countries or institution_types, author rows come from works with such an institution, and the author may be elsewhere.
  • A keyword matches titles and abstracts by default, so a broad word brings in unrelated works. An OpenAlex topic ID is narrower.
  • Each topic ranks at most 200 institutions and 200 authors. With a country or type filter, institutions are chosen from the top 200 on the topic before filtering, so fewer rows can return.
  • h_index, total works, and total citations cover the whole record, not only this topic.