Case Study: Elsevier achieves millisecond science research access with Neo4j

Elsevier Makes Science Research Accessible in Milliseconds with Neo4j

Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of academic literature, needed a faster, more scalable way to make its 90 million documents and highly structured research data searchable for millions of researchers. Its legacy text-based search system could not keep up with complex queries or the scale of demand, so Elsevier turned to Neo4j to power its Scopus search and improve access to scientific knowledge.

Neo4j implemented graph technology to support highly connected data, enabling sub-300-millisecond query response times and real-time performance at scale. Elsevier now handles up to 200,000 queries per minute, while reducing infrastructure from 200 nodes to a single cluster of fewer than 10. The graph solution also improved search visibility and enabled new use cases like conflict-of-interest checks for peer review and future generative AI applications.

Elsevier

Erik Schwartz

VP of Product Management