OpenAlex API - How to get institution ID?

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I am trying to use the OpenAlex API: https://docs.openalex.org/api This API provides access to a catalog of scholarly papers, authors, institutions, etc...

It is easy enough to make a query for an institution's information such. Here is an example from the API docs:

https://api.openalex.org/I19820366

I am trying to figure out how to get a specific institution's ID.

In the docs, there is a statement that this ID number is Microsoft Academic Graph's institutional ID: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/microsoft-academic-graph/

But I have been unable to figure out anything in Microsoft Academic Graph either. How can I find the institutional ID for a specific institution?

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2 Answers

I am a beginner, and I also just started to retrieve data from the OpenAlex API. For me, the easiest way was either to use the ROR id or the GRID id, which you can both look up for any institution either here: https://www.grid.ac/ or here: https://ror.org/ Then you use either ROR or GRID-ID as an identifier (https://docs.openalex.org/about-the-data/institution#ids) and that identifier as a filter, as specified in the API documentation. Be aware, that except for the Institution-ID, that you want to find, all the other institutional IDs, like ROR or GRID, have to be put in your request as a full URL. Take the example of the Johns Hopkins University. It's not enough to put their ROR like this: "00za53h95", you have to put in the API request like that: "https://ror.org/00za53h95" (without the quotes) or else it won't work. In my example, a request could look like this:

https://api.openalex.org/institutions/https://ror.org/00za53h95

This will deliver a nice json file with all the info you need, including the institution's ID in the database. Save the information as a file by using a cURL GET request or just do it via your browser and get the result as a webpage, both works. If you do the latter, you should follow the suggestion of the OpenAlex team and install a browser plugin like JSONVue, that will make the experience of reading the result on your screen so much better. Hope that helps.

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