Europe PMC API Search & New Paper Alerts

key	PMC:PMC9467582
pmcid	PMC9467582
title	Prion 2022 Conference abstracts: pushing the boundaries

How it will work: 3 steps

Follow us on ApifyThe tool is built and waits in the queue for the Apify Store. Apify is the cloud platform where our tools run.
Paste your input and press StartNo code needed: you fill in a form (the input). It already has a working example. For example: CRISPR in Europe PMC query. Each start is one run.
Download the resultsWhen the run ends, the results are in a table (the dataset). Open Output, press Export and pick Excel or CSV. JSON and the API are there too.

This tool is an Apify Actor: a small program that runs on Apify. You can also run it on a schedule, for example every Monday. New to it? Read how it works, step by step and the 8 words you need first.

Made by Cliqto Media, an independent digital media company. We made this tool. About us

What it does

Search Europe PMC for biomedical articles and preprints and get one Dataset row per publication: identifiers (PMID, PMCID, DOI), title, authors, journal, dates, abstract, license and full-text links. Pass a previous snapshot to find new or updated records.

Good for

Literature surveillance: new papers or preprints on a topic in the last N days.
Building a citation list or spreadsheet with DOI, PMID, PMCID, license and links.
Checking which records are open access and under which license before reuse.
Recurring monitoring of one query with a saved snapshot.

Not a good fit

Full text download: the Actor returns full-text links but does not fetch articles.
More than 500 records per run, or a complete history of a topic.
DOI-based deduplication: the same article in MED and PMC stays as two rows.
Medical conclusions, ranking by quality or relevance scoring.

Who uses it

Medical researchers

Watch new papers on a topic.

Systematic review teams

Export a fixed period for screening.

Publishers and librarians

Check open access licenses before reuse.

Price

Prices will be shown after release.

Questions

Do I need a Europe PMC key?

No. It uses the public Europe PMC REST search.

Does open access mean I can reuse the text?

Not always. Check the license and the publisher terms.

Does it download full text?

No. It gives full-text links only.

Why does one paper show twice?

The same article can be in two sources. They stay as two rows.

Why are doi and abstractText empty for some rows?

The newest records are often added before the source has a DOI, PMID or abstract. The Actor keeps null instead of guessing. Records published some time ago more often have these fields filled.

Can I get every article on a topic?

No. One run inspects up to 500 records, newest first. Use date windows to split larger reviews.

Details

Step by step on Apify

Open the Input tab. The form is prefilled with the CRISPR example below.
Click Start.
Open Publications in the Dataset. Check title, pmcid, pubDate and license. Full-text links (fullTextUrls) and the other fields are in the full JSON, CSV or Excel export.
Open Run summary to check counts, source matches and limits.

Use cases

Task	Input	You get	Key fields	Next step
New research on a topic	`query` + `lastDays`	Publication	`title`, `pubDate`, `doi`, `sourceUrl`	Export CSV or read via API
Open-access reuse check	`query` + `openAccessOnly: true`	Publication	`isOpenAccess`, `license`, `fullTextUrls`	Check license before reuse
Preprint tracking	`source: "PPR"`	Publication	`isPreprint`, `title`, `firstIndexDate`	Export or monitor
Fixed review period	`dateFrom` + `dateTo`	Publication	`pmid`, `doi`, `pubTypes`, `abstractText`	Screening spreadsheet
Repeat monitoring	`previousSnapshot` + `onlyNew`	Publication with change type	`changeType`, `fingerprint`, `citedByCount`	Save new `SNAPSHOT`

Tips for better results

Use date windows to split big searches. One run checks up to 500 records.
Save the snapshot each time for repeat monitoring.
Very new records may have no DOI or abstract yet.

Limits and good to know

Europe PMC data access covers metadata, abstracts and full text under different rights. Free or open access does not mean every use is allowed: check the record license and publisher terms before reusing abstracts or following full-text links. The license field is the article license, not an abstract-specific legal guarantee. This Actor is independent of Europe PMC.

Maximum 500 unique inspected records per run. A 500-record run usually takes under a minute (about 10 seconds in our tests); with slow source responses it can stop as PARTIAL at the internal deadline
Source requests are sequential, at least one second apart, each with a 15-second timeout. Source work has a 180-second deadline, a 25-request cap including retries, a 12 MiB limit per response and an 8 MiB total response limit. Two source timeouts stop the run. Memory is 256 MB
The source can add or update records later, and publication date is not index date. For systematic reviews, verify your search strategy and export criteria. This Actor returns data, not medical conclusions or recommendations

For developers

Sample result

One result from a real test run, in JSON. Real values change from run to run. Some values are changed for privacy. In Excel or CSV each field is a column.

one result · JSON

{
  "key": "PMC:PMC9467582",
  "id": "PMC9467582",
  "source": "PMC",
  "pmid": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC9467582",
  "doi": null,
  "title": "Prion 2022 Conference abstracts: pushing the boundaries",
  "authors": ["Author A"],
  "authorString": "Author A.",
  "journal": "Prion",
  "pubYear": null,
  "pubDate": "2026-10-12",
  "firstIndexDate": "2026-10-12",
  "pubTypes": ["Abstract"],
  "abstractText": null,
  "isPreprint": false,
  "isOpenAccess": true,
  "license": "cc by",
  "citedByCount": 0,
  "fullTextUrls": [
    {"url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC9467582", "site": "Europe_PMC", "availability": "Free", "documentStyle": "html"},
    {"url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC9467582?pdf=render", "site": "Europe_PMC", "availability": "Free", "documentStyle": "pdf"}
  ],
  "provider": "Europe PMC",
  "sourceUrl": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC9467582",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-13T08:53:26.062Z",
  "sourceUpdatedAt": "2026-10-12",
  "changeType": "new",
  "fingerprint": "246e0e5a9fd93eff41e313e76282f946e67484bb15b83a8a476cd981598af7cc"
}

Data fields (26)

Field	Type	Meaning
`key`	string	Stable identity source:id. MED and PMC entries are distinct records.
`id`	string	Original Europe PMC ID.
`source`	string	Original literature source code, such as MED, PMC or PPR.
`title`	string	Publication title from the source.
`provider`	string	Europe PMC.
`sourceUrl`	string	Source record page.
`fetchedAt`	string	UTC time when this row was read.
`fingerprint`	string	SHA-256 of normalized content, excluding fetch time and change classification.
`pmid`	string	PubMed ID, null when absent.
`pmcid`	string	PubMed Central ID, null when absent.
`doi`	string	DOI, null when absent.
`authorString`	string	Source author display string.
`journal`	string	Journal title, null for records without one.
`pubDate`	string	First publication date reported by Europe PMC.
`firstIndexDate`	string	First Europe PMC indexing date, not a last-update date.
`abstractText`	string	Source abstract text, possibly with HTML markup. Null when absent.
`license`	string	Source article license. Null means unknown; not an abstract-specific reuse grant.
`authors`	array	Author names in source order; empty if absent.
`pubTypes`	array	Source publication type labels.
`pubYear`	integer	Reported publication year; null if absent.
`citedByCount`	integer	Citation count; zero is preserved, absent is null.
`isOpenAccess`	boolean	Source open-access flag; unknown is null.
`isPreprint`	boolean	True for PPR or publication type Preprint. No medical conclusion.
`sourceUpdatedAt`	string	Source dateOfRevision when supplied. Source revision date, not fetch/index/publication time; null when unavailable.
`changeType`	string	Compared with previousSnapshot. Without baseline all rows are new.
`fullTextUrls`	array	Source-supplied links. Access status can be open, free or subscription. Full text is not downloaded.

Input settings (9)

The main fields of the input form. With the API you send them as JSON.

Setting	Name in the API	Type	Example value
Europe PMC query required	`query`	string	`"CRISPR"`
Recent publication window	`lastDays`	integer	`30`
Published from	`dateFrom`	string
Published through	`dateTo`	string
Open access only	`openAccessOnly`	boolean	`true`
Literature source	`source`	string	`"ALL"`
Maximum records to inspect	`maxResults`	integer	`25`
Previous snapshot	`previousSnapshot`	object
Return only new publications	`onlyNew`	boolean	`false`

Europe PMC Literature Search and Monitor

How it will work: 3 steps