Microsoft Academic

The Microsoft Academic website and underlying services retired on December 31, 2021.

Sources and shutdown details ↘

Research & data analysis · Closed · 31 Dec 2021 · Microsoft

The record

An AI-powered scholarly discovery website that read academic documents, inferred search intent and recommended papers, people and related research.

Operator at shutdown: Microsoft Company source
Service end: 31 Dec 2021Closure source

Sources and verification

MicrosoftResearch retirementFAQ; laterMicrosoftExternalStaff confirmation ↗ · Checked 28 Oct 2026

Verification notes

Shutdown: Microsoft Research’s original FAQ states that the complete Microsoft Academic website would become inaccessible after December 31, 2021. A later Microsoft Q&A answer, posted on April 19, 2023 by Antonio and explicitly labeled Microsoft External Staff, confirms that the website and underlying APIs retired on that date. This is attributed vendor support confirmation, not a product-team announcement or our own timed backend test. The archived product is the full AI scholarly-discovery website: machine readers, semantic search intent, recommendations and alerts. Its APIs and graph distribution are not separate tombstones; existing licensed graph copies and disclosed algorithms are not declared unusable. The cutoff hour and time zone are unknown. Redmond is a sourced corporate-headquarters city fallback, not a verified Academic team office. Closure source
Dates checked: Announced 4 May 2021 · Verified 28 Oct 2026
AI functionality: AI functionality source
Launch: The project page says it was established on February 22, 2016, while the 2021 notice describes more than seven years of service history. The first public availability date is unknown; the project date is not substituted.
Location: United States · Redmond. Microsoft’s original corporate blog identifies its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. This is a headquarters-city fallback, not a verified Academic team office. Coordinates are rounded GeoNames locality points. Location source · Coordinate source