Searching for the Best Websites for Research Papers Free for Researchers? Then you are on the right page.
A research paper is well-detailed Academic writing that discusses a subject topic explicitly based on in-depth research and analysis.
Research papers provide the ability of critical thinking to students and let them discover more about a subject topic.
Research papers also help students develop problem-solving skills by analyzing data, determining the relevant data to be used, and collecting them all into one main idea or solution.
Research papers are all over the internet but only very few are free and peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed articles are academic writings written by experts and endorsed by other experts or professionals in the field.
A peer-reviewed article means that the article was written by an expert and has been reviewed by other experts on the subject topic.
While some research papers can be free, only a few are peer-reviewed which is most times the type of research papers required by students. You can check for peer-reviewed research papers by limiting your search in the journal’s database to peer-reviewed.
Open Access Journals provide students, scholars, and researchers with free access to journals and research papers that can be peer-reviewed or not.
To find a good research paper for academic writing, it is necessary to ensure that they are peer-reviewed.
25 Best Websites for Research Papers Free for Researchers
These are the websites that offer free research papers:
- CORE
- Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)
- Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ)
- Science Open
- Google Scholar
- Library Genesis
- Sci-Hub
- Semantic Scholar
- DRYAD
- PubMed
- Zenodo
- E-Theses Online Service (ETHOS)
- arXiv e-Print Archive
- OpenDOAR
- CIA World Factbook
- Paperity
- JURN
- BioMed Central
- Social Science Research Network
- Public Library of Science
- Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
- EconBiz
- Digital Library of the Commons Repository
- dplp Computer Science Bibliography
- Citationsy Archives
CORE
CORE is the world’s largest holder of Open Access Journals that are peer-reviewed. It has over 220 million collected research papers globally.
CORE includes advanced search options where students can access a research paper using Language, publisher, author, journal, repository, publisher, and DOI.
With its uniquely built API that serves clients everywhere, it is able to provide research papers to students globally.
Start your search on core here
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)
This is an online research database where you can search for full-text research articles for free. It also includes a search filter for peer-reviewed articles.
They have their own API that lets you query from their database and collects enough material for your academic writings. Their interface is simple and easy to use.
Start your search on ERIC here
Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ)
This is a community-curated Research site. It provides high-quality research that is peer-reviewed papers to students for academic writing.
It has research papers in over 80 languages and represents 130 countries. The number of journals accessible on the site reaches up to 18, 000 and it has about 8 million articles.
Gave access to indexed journals and research papers from anywhere in the world.
Start your search on DOAJ here
Science Open
Science Open is a research and publishing site that houses over 70 million articles in Science related fields.
Science Open also provides networking opportunities via a Science Open Profile where people can interact with each other and connect ideas.
To be able to view the full context of articles, you would need to register with them. Registration is free and open to anyone.
Start your search on Science Open here
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is an open-access literature Journal powered by Google. It gives you access to peer-reviewed online academic journals that are indexed.
It offers advanced search options by author, publish date, phrase, etc. Access to these journals is unlimited.
Start your search on Google Scholar here
Library Genesis
This is a digital file-sharing library that gives free access to research papers, journals, eBooks, images, etc. It was established in March 2008 and has since served billions of people worldwide.
Library Genesis developed from the underground file-sharing culture of the Soviet Union, growing into a library for the collection of books worldwide.
Start your search on Library Genesis here
Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub is a research site borne out of the idea to provide researchers, medical professionals, and journalists access to free and unlimited journals, research papers, and academic writings.
Sci-Hub started as a quick tool that provides access to scientific journals but has now evolved to be a database with over 87 million research articles and books.
Sci-Hub is constantly helping people unlock access to information and is the most popular tool used by science students globally.
Start your search on Sci-Hub here
Semantic Scholar
Semantic scholar is a revolutionized powerful search tool for finding research papers in scientific literature.
Semantic Scholar is powered by AI to find Searches across its database. The filters let you search the database by relevance, citation count, most influential papers, and recency.
Take advantage of this Open Access Scientific Journal database today.
Start your search on Semantic Scholar here
DRYAD
Dryad is an open access community-led repository for scientific and medical research data. Dryad makes research data discoverable, freely reusable, and citable.
Start your search on Dryad here
PubMed
PubMed Central is an Open Access journal for a full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences literature.
It is government owned and located at the U.S National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine. Browse through an archive of over 8.1 million articles for your academic writings.
Start your search on PubMed here
Zenodo
Zenodo is an online repository that allows researchers to upload and share their research papers for free. Zenodo is free to access and it is peer-reviewed. It makes it data citable and reusable by researchers everywhere.
Start your search on Zenodo here
E-Theses Online Service (ETHOS)
ETHOS is a free research site operated by the British Library. It has a collection of about 520, 000 theses in different fields.
Although the library is open access, it also has limitations to some documents which are paid for. The library is not peer-reviewed.
Start your search on ETHOS here
arXiv e-Print Archive
Owned by Cornell University Library, arXiv is a STEM archive that provides searches for Math and Science. It is open access and has a collection of about 2 million journals.
Resources are not peer-reviewed.
Start your search on arXiv here
OpenDOAR
OpenDOAR is used to search a different repository of databases on the internet through google custom search.
It is free and open for use by anyone.
Start your search on OpenDOAR here
CIA World Factbook
CIA World Factbook allows users to search its database for issues relating to history, government, economy, energy, geography, military, and transportation in over 260 locations across the world.
Start your search on World Factbook here
Paperity
Paperity is a multi-field research tool that is open access. It is the first multi-disciplinary aggregator of free research papers, journals, and articles.
Paperity is open to access from anywhere around the world. It aims to solve the paywall that scholars encounter while trying to access research papers.
Start your search on Paperity here
JURN
JURN provides links to scholarly websites where research papers can be accessed for free. It covers fields such as arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine.
Having indexed over 5,000 repositories, JURN is the perfect site to access research on different topics.
Start your search on JURN here
BioMed Central
For over 20 years, BioMed central has been providing free high-quality research journals to researchers in fields related to BMC Biology and BMC Medicine.
BioMed Central expanded its fields to include the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering disciplines thus providing open access to academic writings for millions of users all over the world.
Start your search on BioMed here
Social Science Research Network
Social Science Research Network offers Searches on 67 different Social Science topics. The site holds 700,00+ abstracts and about 600,000 full-text articles.
To use their search feature, it requires that you register with them for free. Becoming a member gives you access to 700, 000 Abstracts and 600, 000 articles plus the opportunity to interact and connect with scholars all over the world.
Start your search on SSRN here
Public Library of Science
PLOS is one of the leading open-access science journals all over the world. All of its full-text articles and journals are peer-reviewed and available to anyone anywhere in the world.
The Public Library of Science also grooms peer reviewers and helps professionals take on the path to becoming a peer reviewer.
Start your search on PLOS here
Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
BASE is run by the Bielefield University Library in Germany and is a good source of peer-reviewed journals.
More than 60% of its documents are open access and you can apply multiple filters to narrow down your search.
Search can be done by author, title, or date and is very efficient in finding research papers.
Start your search on BASE here
EconBiz
EconBiz is a site for Economics and business research. It is not completely free, but it offers filters to search for open-access journals only.
Start your search on EconBiz here
Digital Library of the Commons Repository
The Digital library of the commons is operated by Indiana University that allows users access to thousands of free articles and research papers.
Start your search on DLCR here
dplp Computer Science Bibliography
This research site is mainly for computer science students to make use of research journals and articles. It is an online index for major computer science publications.
It is not completely free but it has filters that narrow your searches to only open access journals. It is also a good source of peer-reviewed articles.
Start your search on dplp here
Citationsy Archives
This is a research website that allows you to cite and download journal articles and scientific papers.
Start your search on Citationsy here
Many research sites now try to eliminate the paywall that scholars face while trying to access the research papers on their sites.
More and more sites are evolving to open access while few choose to offer open access to a number of their research papers.
The good news is that more quality and peer-reviewed journals and articles are now available for download by scholars eliminating the barriers that once existed for them. What are your thoughts about these best websites for research papers free for researchers?