ScienceDirect APIs
Last updated on March 02, 2026
Use ScienceDirect APIs to retrieve and integrate content from publications on ScienceDirect into your website or applications.
Visit the Elsevier Dev portalopens in new tab/window to get started.
Frequently asked questions
Various options are available for researchers who want to use Elsevier APIs:
- Non-Commercial Users (Researchers in Academic, Public Sector & Not-for-Profit Institutions): Most APIs (except SciVal and Embase APIs) are available for no charge, for non-commercial use, subject to Elsevier's policies and limits on usage.
- Commercial Users (Researchers in Private Sector & Commercial Institutions): APIs are available (for commercial use), with an API license and subscription.
For a quick summary of the available ScienceDirect APIs and what they offer, refer to the information below. For more detailed information, go to the ScienceDirect overviewopens in new tab/window on the Elsevier Developer Portal.
- Article Entitlement Retrievalopens in new tab/window: Returns ScienceDirect article entitlement given unique article identifier in context of the user’s authentication.
- Article Recommendation Retrievalopens in new tab/window: Returns recommended articles based on unique article identifiers.
- Article Retrievalopens in new tab/window: Returns an article (or abstract of full-text, depending on the developer’s entitlements) given a document identifier. Article Retrieval API response includes links to various resources or objects associated with an article.
- Authenticationopens in new tab/window: Represents an IP authentication request that creates a secured authtoken (see more about Authentication & Access).
- Enhancement Fragment Retrievalopens in new tab/window: Enables search or retrieval of the enhancement fragments associated with a full-text article.
- Holdings Reportopens in new tab/window: Returns a usage report generated based on your library’s ScienceDirect holdings. Data is available in the Knowledge Base and Related Tools (KBART) format (see more about Holdings & Usage Reports.
- Nonserial Titleopens in new tab/window: Returns metadata about non-serial title given ISBN document identifier.
- Object Retrievalopens in new tab/window: Returns objects associated with a full-text article.
- Object Searchopens in new tab/window: Allows a search of objects and attachments associated with a full-text article.
- ScienceDirect Searchopens in new tab/window: Allows a search of ScienceDirect content based on criteria you specify.
- Serial Titleopens in new tab/window: Returns metadata about serial title given ISSN document.
- Subject Classificationsopens in new tab/window: Identifies subject classifications associated with ScienceDirect content.
Find a list of our available How To Guides for using ScienceDirect APIs.opens in new tab/window
- Direct access to real-time ScienceDirect data
- RESTful architectureopens in new tab/window: stateless, scalable, portable and reliable platform
- Standards and specifications support: W3C CORSopens in new tab/window, Dublin Coreopens in new tab/window, Idealliance PRISMopens in new tab/window
- Straightforward integration with applications you wish to develop and with content you want to integrate onto your web sites (e.g., institutional repository, library website)
- Variety of API response formatsopens in new tab/window supported
- API responses include links to relevant resources to simplify navigation and access
- Interactive API documentationopens in new tab/window allows you to preview an API request and response in any of the supported response formats
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