The best academic research databases [Update 2024] - Paperpile (2024)

Whether you are writing a thesis, dissertation, or research paper it is a key task to survey prior literature and research findings. More likely than not, you will be looking for trusted resources, most likely peer-reviewed research articles.

Academic research databases make it easy to locate the literature you are looking for. We have compiled the top list of trusted academic resources to help you get started with your research:

1. Scopus

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Besides searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator.

• Coverage: 90.6 million core records
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: Limited free preview, full access by institutional subscription only
• Provider: Elsevier

2. Web of Science

Web of Science also known as Web of Knowledge is the second big bibliographic database. Usually, academic institutions provide either access to Web of Science or Scopus on their campus network for free.

• Coverage: approx. 100 million items
• References: 1.4 billion
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: institutional subscription only
• Provider: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)

3. PubMed

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC).

• Coverage: approx. 35 million items
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Medicine and Biological Sciences
• Access options: free
• Provider: NIH

4. ERIC

For education sciences, ERIC is the number one destination. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center, and is a database that specifically hosts education-related literature.

• Coverage: approx. 1.6 million items
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Education
• Access options: free
• Provider: U.S. Department of Education

5. IEEE Xplore

IEEE Xplore is the leading academic database in the field of engineering and computer science. It's not only journal articles, but also conference papers, standards and books that can be search for.

• Coverage: approx. 6 million items
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Engineering
• Access options: free
• Provider: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

6. ScienceDirect

ScienceDirect is the gateway to the millions of academic articles published by Elsevier, 1.4 million of which are open access. Journals and books can be searched via a single interface.

• Coverage: approx. 19.5 million items
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: free
• Provider: Elsevier

7. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The DOAJ is an open-access academic database that can be accessed and searched for free.

• Coverage: over 8 million records
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: free
• Provider: DOAJ

8. JSTOR

JSTOR is another great resource to find research papers. Any article published before 1924 in the United States is available for free and JSTOR also offers scholarships for independent researchers.

• Coverage: more than 12 million items
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: free
• Provider: ITHAKA

Get the most out of your academic research database

Start using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with PubMed and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Frequently Asked Questions about academic research databases

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