ParseForge
Europe PMC Articles Scraper
parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper
AutomationIntegrationsEducation
Scrapes biomedical literature from Europe PMC by a free-text search query. Returns each article as a flat row with title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, and open-access links.
- Total users
- 2
- Monthly active
- 1
- Total runs
- 85
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 9 days ago
Overview
Europe PMC Articles Scraper
Scrape Europe PMC articles by any search query, up to a million per run. Each article comes with its title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, open-access flag, and full-text links. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Europe PMC is a free database of over 40 million life-science and biomedical articles, including PubMed, PubMed Central, preprints, and patents. This Actor runs your search query directly against Europe PMC and returns each matching article as a flat row, with no API key or registration needed. It is built for researchers, librarians, and data analysts who need clean, structured article metadata for literature reviews, bibliometrics, or evidence synthesis.
| Who uses it | What they scrape Europe PMC for |
|---|---|
| Academic researchers | Building a corpus of papers for a systematic review or meta-analysis |
| Librarians | Checking coverage of a journal or author in Europe PMC |
| Data analysts | Extracting article metadata for bibliometric or trend analysis |
| Pharma and biotech teams | Monitoring new publications on a drug, target, or disease |
What it does
This Actor collects Europe PMC articles by search query and returns each one as a flat row with bibliographic metadata and full-text links.
- 🔍 Search by query: Use the full Europe PMC query syntax, including field tags like AUTH, JOURNAL, and PUB_YEAR.
- 📄 Rich metadata: Each row includes title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, and open-access flag.
- 🔗 Full-text links: Get direct URLs to the full text and PDF when available.
- 📊 Scalable: Fetch up to 1,000,000 articles per run for paid users; free preview limited to 10 items.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with Europe PMC data
📚 Build a literature review corpus.
A PhD student runs a query like 'cancer AND immunotherapy' with maxItems 5000 to collect all matching articles for screening in a systematic review.
📈 Track publication trends.
A research analyst runs monthly queries on a disease term and exports the results to chart the growth of publications over time.
🔎 Find open-access papers.
A librarian uses the open-access flag to generate a list of freely available articles on a topic for a reading list.
🧪 Monitor competitor research.
A biotech team sets up a scheduled run for a drug target query and reviews new papers each week.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| No API key | Runs on the public Europe PMC REST API with no registration or key management |
| Structured output | Every article is returned as a flat row with consistent field names, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export |
| Full query power | Supports the complete Europe PMC query language, including Boolean operators and field tags |
| Citation data | Includes citation counts and MeSH terms for downstream analysis |
How it compares
This Actor focuses on simple, query-based metadata extraction from Europe PMC, while the competitors below offer additional features like full-text scraping, PMID/DOI lookup, or pay-per-result pricing.
| Feature | ParseForge | Europe PMC Scraper - Life-Science Papers & Full Text | Europe PMC Scraper | Europe PMC Biomedical Literature Scraper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search by query | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Full-text and PDF links | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Citation count | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| MeSH terms | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Get article by PMID or DOI | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Not listed |
| Pay per result, no charge for empty runs | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with a Europe PMC search query and set the maximum number of articles to return. The query supports the full Europe PMC syntax, so you can filter by author, journal, publication year, MeSH term, or any other field before the Actor even runs. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
{
"query": "cancer",
"maxItems": 10
}
A larger pull:
{
"query": "cancer",
"maxItems": 200
}
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.85 |
| 1,000 results | $8.50 |
| 10,000 results | $85.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the Europe PMC Articles Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to Europe PMC through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/europe-pmc-articles-scraper"
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Check your query syntax. Europe PMC uses a specific query language. Try a simpler query first, like a single word, and then add filters. Also verify that maxItems is set to at least 1.
Why did the run stop after 10 articles?
Free users are limited to a preview of 10 articles. Upgrade to a paid plan to scrape more, up to 1,000,000 per run.
Why are some fields empty in my results?
Not all articles have every field. For example, some records may lack a DOI or MeSH terms. This is normal and reflects the source data.
Can I get the full text of an article?
This Actor returns links to the full text and PDF, but it does not download the full text. Use a dedicated full-text scraper or the related actors for that.
Why is my query returning too many results?
Refine your query with additional filters, such as publication year, journal, or MeSH terms. You can also lower maxItems to limit the output.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I need an API key for Europe PMC? | No. This Actor uses the public Europe PMC REST API, which does not require an API key or registration. |
| What is the maximum number of articles I can scrape? | Free users can preview up to 10 articles. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run. |
| Can I use advanced Europe PMC query syntax? | Yes. The query field accepts the full Europe PMC query language, including Boolean operators, field tags like AUTH, JOURNAL, and PUB_YEAR, and phrase search. |
| What fields are returned for each article? | Each row includes title, abstract, authors, journal, year, DOI, PMID, PMCID, citation count, MeSH terms, open-access flag, and full-text links when available. |
| Does this Actor get the full text of articles? | It returns links to the full text and PDF when available, but it does not download the full text itself. For full-text scraping, see the related actors. |
| Can I export the results to Excel or CSV? | Yes. Apify supports export to CSV, JSON, Excel, and XML from the dataset. |
| Is this the same as PubMed? | Europe PMC includes all PubMed records plus additional content like preprints, patents, and agricultural science. It is a superset of PubMed. |
| How do I search by author or journal? | Use field tags in your query, for example 'AUTH:Smith' or 'JOURNAL:Nature'. The full Europe PMC query syntax is supported. |
| Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically? | Yes. You can set up a schedule in Apify to run the Actor daily, weekly, or at any interval. |
| What happens if my query returns no results? | The run will finish with an empty dataset. You will not be charged for the run if you are on a pay-per-result plan. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Europe PMC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| query | string | Europe PMC search query. | cancer |
| maxItems | integer | Free users. Limited to 10 items (preview). Paid users. Optional, max 1,000,000. | 10 |
Pricing
from $7.50 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.0075 to $0.0085 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~europe-pmc-articles-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.