CORE API

Science & Math / API Key Intermediate HTTPS
10 per window (10 remaining at test time)
39 F
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 0/30 Consistency 8/20 Security 16/20 Browser access 0/15 Transparency 15/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

CORE provides access to millions of open-access research papers from repositories and journals worldwide. You can search, filter, and download full-text academic content programmatically using your API key. It is a powerful resource for researchers, students, and developers building academic tools.

Beginner Tip

Use the search endpoint with a simple keyword query to get started, then explore the metadata fields like authors and DOI for richer integrations. Your API key must be included in every request as a Bearer token.

Measurement Record

What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.

Request
GET https://api.core.ac.uk/v3/search/works?q=machine+learning&limit=5
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 35,439 bytes · compressed
Response time
6021 ms (median of 3) · fastest 4043 ms
Transport
TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
Browser CORS
No Access-Control-Allow-Origin header — call it from a server, not the browser
Rate limit
10 per window (10 remaining at test time)
Served by
cloudflare
Recorded
2026-08-10

Fields Returned

Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.

Field Type Value received
totalHits integer 592803
limit integer 5
offset integer 0
results array [1 item]
searchId string d2c7f7c7c93cc7b150b09430e261541b

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://api.core.ac.uk/v3/search/works?q=machine+learning&limit=5 on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "totalHits": 592803,
  "limit": 5,
  "offset": 0,
  "results": [
    {
      "acceptedDate": "",
      "arxivId": null,
      "authors": [
        {
          "…": "(1 more fields)"
        }
      ],
      "citationCount": 0,
      "contributors": [],
      "outputs": [
        "https://api.core.ac.uk/v3/outputs/641684400"
      ],
      "createdDate": "2025-09-05T01:56:34+01:00",
      "dataProviders": [
        {
          "…": "(4 more fields)"
        }
      ],
      "depositedDate": "2025-01-31T16:43:09+00:00",
      "abstract": "Learning curves are a concept from social sciences that has been adopted in the context of machine learning to assess the performance of a learning algorithm…",
      "documentType": "",
      "doi": "10.1007/s10994-024-06619-7",
      "downloadUrl": "",
      "fieldOfStudy": "Artículo de revista",
      "…": "(15 more fields)"
    }
  ],
  "searchId": "d2c7f7c7c93cc7b150b09430e261541b"
}

Field Reference

authors List of author objects with name and affiliation.
abstract Abstract or summary text of the paper.
doi Digital Object Identifier for the paper, if available.
downloadUrl URL to download the full-text PDF of the paper.

Implementation Example

Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.

Request
const url = "https://api.core.ac.uk/v3/search/works?q=machine+learning&limit=5";
// Replace headers or query params with the values required by this API.
const response = await fetch(url, {
  headers: {
  "X-API-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
  }
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

How This API Fails

We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist text/html
{
  "message": "No route found for \"GET https://api.core.ac.uk/v3/search/works/apisscore-nonexistent-path\""
}

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.

401 Unauthorized API key is missing or has been sent incorrectly.
Include your key in the Authorization header as "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" or as the apiKey query parameter.
429 Too Many Requests You have exceeded the rate limit for your API tier.
Add a delay between requests or request a higher-tier key from the CORE website.
Empty results The search query returned no matching open-access papers.
Try broader keywords or use boolean operators like "machine AND learning" for more targeted searches.

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 0/30
Consistency 8/20
Security 16/20
Browser access 0/15
Transparency 15/15
Endpoint Response Time 6021ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth API Key
HTTPS REQUIRED
CORS UNKNOWN
Category Science & Math
Difficulty Intermediate
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

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