Websites to Download Research Papers for Free

 

Top 40 Websites to Download Research Papers for Free

Access to quality research is crucial for academic work. Below are 40 legitimate and widely used sources where you can download research articles, theses, preprints, and other scholarly works without paywalls.

A. General Academic Search & Open Access Platforms

1. Sci-Hub – Unlocks paywalled research papers (controversial but widely used).

2. ResearchGate – Social network for researchers, many upload full-text PDFs.

3. Academia.edu – Researchers share their work; free sign-up required.

4. CORE – Aggregates millions of open access research outputs.

5. Semantic Scholar – AI-powered academic search tool.

6. PubMed Central – Full-text life sciences and biomedical research.

7. arXiv – Preprints in physics, mathematics, computer science, and more.

8. SSRN – Social sciences and humanities research papers.

9. JSTOR (Free Access) – Limited free articles each month via registration.

10. SpringerOpen – Open access journals across disciplines.

B. Open Access Directories & Journal Collections

11. DOAJ – Directory of fully open access scholarly journals.

12. EThOS – UK’s theses and dissertations repository.

13. Unpaywall – Browser extension to find free legal copies of paywalled papers.

14. ScienceOpen – Search and access open access publications.

15. OpenAIRE – European open science platform.

16. OSF Preprints – Multidisciplinary preprint repository.

17. PaperPanda – Quick access to free versions of papers.

18. BASE – Academic search engine for open access content.

19. ERIC – Education research and information.

20. Citationsy Archives – Search and access millions of open research papers.

C. Subject-Specific & Discipline-Focused Sources

21. DeepDyve – Rent research papers for free preview or affordable reading.

22. PLOS – Public Library of Science; fully open access journals.

23. Zenodo – EU-backed open science repository.

24. bioRxiv & medRxiv – Life sciences & medical preprints.

25. PsyArXiv – Psychology preprint repository.

26. PhilPapers – Philosophy research articles.

27. HAL Archives – French national research archive.

28. Redalyc – Open access research from Latin America.

29. SciELO – Scientific Electronic Library Online, multilingual open access.

30. WorldWideScience – Global science gateway to national research portals.

D. Publisher-Specific & Institutional Repositories

31. Research4Life – Free/low-cost access for developing countries.

32. Hindawi – Open access journals in multiple fields.

33. MDPI – Fully open access publisher.

34. Cambridge Open Engage – Preprints and open research from Cambridge University Press.

35. Wiley Open Access – Open access journals from Wiley.

36. Nature Communications – Open access section of Nature.

E. Theses, Dissertations & Institutional Collections

37. EBSCO Open Dissertations – Free dissertations database.

38. OATD – Open Access Theses & Dissertations.

39. Digital Commons Network – Institutional repository content.

40. Internet Archive – Scholar – Millions of academic books and papers.