academicresearchproductivity

One-click academic paper access

Build a browser extension that instantly finds free versions of paywalled research papers. Targets students and researchers tired of hitting paywalls.

Why now

Academic publishing paywalls remain a daily frustration, and existing solutions require manual searching.

Who for
Students and researchers
Business model
Freemium with institutional plans
Effort
A few weeks

Researchers waste time navigating paywalls when trying to access papers. An extension could automatically check open-access repositories when users hit a paywall.

The tool would integrate with major publishers' sites, detecting DOI/PMID and querying Unpaywall-like sources in the background.

Universities might pay for institutional licenses to reduce their students' friction. Individual researchers would use a freemium model.

Start with basic DOI lookup from arXiv and institutional repositories. Expand to more sources later.

Risk: Publishers may block the extension or change their paywall detection methods.

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One-click academic paper access — Ideas