Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
Querying all OA publications from H2020-funded projects via the OpenAIRE Graph.
- Is an instance
A national open-science observatory built on top of the OpenAIRE Graph dumps.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Google Scholar's index is not the OpenAIRE Graph.
- Not an instance
An institution's own internal CRIS database is not the OpenAIRE Graph.
Editorial commentary
Built from the OpenAIRE Research Graph project, the OpenAIRE Graph (also called the OpenAIRE Research Graph) ingests metadata from Crossref, DataCite, ORCID, Microsoft Academic Graph (legacy), and from harvest-compliant repositories and CRIS systems following the OpenAIRE Guidelines. Sophisticated entity-deduplication and link-inference algorithms produce a unified graph. The graph powers OpenAIRE EXPLORE for end users, OpenAIRE PROVIDE for content provider services, and is published as bulk dumps via Zenodo.
What feeds the graph
Entity-deduplication and link-inference algorithms merge records describing the same underlying publication, dataset, project, or person from multiple sources into a single graph node, and infer relationships — such as a dataset produced by a specific funded project — not always explicit in any single source record. Coverage spans thousands of institutional repositories, journals, and CRIS systems exposing metadata under the OpenAIRE Guidelines, alongside the major identifier registries above.
What it powers
The graph is the data layer behind OpenAIRE EXPLORE, the public search and discovery interface; OpenAIRE PROVIDE, services aimed at content and metadata providers such as compliance monitoring against funder OA policies; and periodic bulk dumps distributed via Zenodo, letting third parties build their own tools or national open-science observatories on the same underlying data.
How it differs from OpenAlex
The OpenAIRE Graph and OpenAlex are genuinely separate infrastructure, not overlapping brands: the OpenAIRE Graph is a European-initiative project, EOSC-oriented, built around harvesting CRIS systems under the OpenAIRE Guidelines, while OpenAlex is a US-nonprofit-maintained (OurResearch), globally scoped graph with its own separate ingestion pipeline and licensing model (CC0 data, usage-metered API). The two can overlap in coverage for the same publication without being the same dataset.
References
- Manghi, P. et al., “The OpenAIRE Research Graph Dump” (Zenodo, ongoing releases from 2019).
- graph.openaire.eu, OpenAIRE Research Graph documentation.
Also known as
OpenAIRE Research Graph
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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