UCLouvain (Universite catholique de Louvain) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university -- a private institution subsidised by public authorities, Catholic in identity, based in Louvain-la-Neuve with campuses in Brussels, Mons, Tournai, Charleroi and Namur, and ranked #203 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its programmable footprint is small, real, and mostly NOT its own engineering. UCLouvain operates no public developer portal, issues no API keys, and api.uclouvain.be answers 503 with no backend behind it. What it does operate, verified live on 2026-08-30: the Orthanc medical-imaging ecosystem -- a genuinely UCLouvain-authored open-source project run out of ICTEAM's Health Informatics Lab, publishing a 239-path OpenAPI 3.0 contract and a public demo server; four OAI-PMH 2.0 repositories (Dataverse open data, DIAL.pr research publications, DIAL.mem master's theses, OER-UCLouvain open educational resources); a SAML 2.0 / Shibboleth identity provider registered with the Belnet federation and exported to eduGAIN; and Crossref membership in its own right, minting DOIs under prefix 10.14428. Everything else that looks like a UCLouvain API is a product's contract running on a UCLouvain host: the Dataverse 6.8 Native API and the DSpace-CRIS 8.1 REST API behind DIAL are recorded here as tenant deployments, not as UCLouvain's contracts. An earlier profile of this repository credited UCLouvain with 36 OpenAPI definitions that were in fact one Dataverse product spec split by tag -- a contract eight institutions in this catalog ship identically. Those have been removed.
UCLouvain publishes 1 API on the APIs.io network: Orthanc API. Tagged areas include University, Higher Education, Education, Belgium, and Private Research University.
UCLouvain’s developer surface includes documentation, API reference, authentication, and 18 more developer resources.
Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the
Education & Research regime, so
Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite.
If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your
provider repo — the
applicability map is public and we will correct it.
Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it
carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts
themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already
holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in
front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created.
Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet,
not penalised by it.
The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them,
because the conditional facet above carries the other
25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped
maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal
weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/uclouvain: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts.
Submit an artifact on GitHub — free →Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →
Orthanc is a free and open-source, vendor-neutral DICOM server and medical-imaging ecosystem. UCLouvain describes itself as "the innovation engine behind Orthanc": the project i...
Open Data @ UCLouvain is the institution's research-data repository, running Dataverse 6.8 on UCLouvain infrastructure at dataverse.uclouvain.be and minting DOIs under UCLouvain...
DIAL.pr, branded BOREAL, is UCLouvain's institutional repository for the research publications of its professors and staff. It runs DSpace-CRIS 8.1 (cris-2025.01.00) on the UCLo...
DIAL.mem is UCLouvain's institutional repository for master's theses, part of the DIAL (Digital Access to Libraries) family. It runs the same DSpace-CRIS 8.1 stack as DIAL.pr, o...
OER-UCLouvain is the institution's open educational resources repository, running DSpace JSPUI on oer.uclouvain.be (CNAME dspace.sipr.ucl.ac.be, UCLouvain's own SIPR infrastruct...
UCLouvain runs its own Shibboleth identity provider and publishes signed SAML 2.0 entity metadata at a stable, unauthenticated URL. entityID https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibbol...
aid: uclouvain
name: UCLouvain
description: 'UCLouvain (Universite catholique de Louvain) is Belgium''s largest French-speaking university -- a private institution
subsidised by public authorities, Catholic in identity, based in Louvain-la-Neuve with campuses in Brussels, Mons, Tournai,
Charleroi and Namur, and ranked #203 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its programmable footprint is small, real,
and mostly NOT its own engineering. UCLouvain operates no public developer portal, issues no API keys, and api.uclouvain.be
answers 503 with no backend behind it. What it does operate, verified live on 2026-08-30: the Orthanc medical-imaging ecosystem
-- a genuinely UCLouvain-authored open-source project run out of ICTEAM''s Health Informatics Lab, publishing a 239-path
OpenAPI 3.0 contract and a public demo server; four OAI-PMH 2.0 repositories (Dataverse open data, DIAL.pr research publications,
DIAL.mem master''s theses, OER-UCLouvain open educational resources); a SAML 2.0 / Shibboleth identity provider registered
with the Belnet federation and exported to eduGAIN; and Crossref membership in its own right, minting DOIs under prefix
10.14428. Everything else that looks like a UCLouvain API is a product''s contract running on a UCLouvain host: the Dataverse
6.8 Native API and the DSpace-CRIS 8.1 REST API behind DIAL are recorded here as tenant deployments, not as UCLouvain''s
contracts. An earlier profile of this repository credited UCLouvain with 36 OpenAPI definitions that were in fact one Dataverse
product spec split by tag -- a contract eight institutions in this catalog ship identically. Those have been removed.'
type: Index
x-type: university
x-category: Private Research University
deliveryModel:
model: self-hosted
open_source: true
commercial: false
callable_host: true
label: Institution-operated endpoints - open standards plus one institution-authored open-source API
confidence: high
source:
- openapi
- probe
generated: '2026-08-30'
method: probed
accessModel:
pricing: free
onboarding: none
trial: false
try_now: true
public: true
label: Free and keyless - no developer portal, no API keys; gated services use SAML federation
confidence: high
source:
- probe
generated: '2026-08-30'
method: probed
position: Consuming
access: Public
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/uclouvain.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/uclouvain/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- Belgium
- Private Research University
- Open Data
- Research Data
- Open Science
- Institutional Repository
- OAI-PMH
- Identity Federation
- Open-Source
- Medical Imaging
- Library
tags_raw:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- Belgium
- Private Research University
- Open Data
- Research Data
- Open Science
- Institutional Repository
- OAI-PMH
- Identity Federation
- Open Source
- Medical Imaging
- Library
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-30'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
x-coverage:
state: covered
reason: covered
detail: 'Covered. Real institution-operated surfaces were found and probed live on 2026-08-30: the Orthanc API (239 paths,
OpenAPI 3.0, servers[] on orthanc.uclouvain.be, project authored and hosted by UCLouvain ICTEAM), four OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoints
each returning a valid Identify with a uclouvain.be adminEmail, and a Shibboleth/SAML 2.0 IdP with a uclouvain.be scope
registered by Belnet into eduGAIN. Domain-standard conformance recorded for oai-pmh, shibboleth, saml, orcid and crossref;
datacite checked and explicitly negative (prefix 10.14428 is a Crossref prefix). Two limits on this coverage: dial.uclouvain.be,
the host the previous profile pointed at, is TCP-unreachable on 80 and 443 -- DIAL has migrated to DSpace-CRIS at research./thesis.dial.uclouvain.be
and the old pointer has been removed; and github.com/uclouvain/osis now 404s, the org holding only four public repos,
so the OSIS entry has been removed rather than carried as a dead claim. No public API-key or developer-portal surface
exists to be gated by -- api.uclouvain.be returns 503 with no backend.'
generated: '2026-08-30'
method: probed
evidence:
- url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/api/orthanc-openapi.json
status: 200
- url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/demo/system
status: 200
- url: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/api/info/version
status: 200
- url: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/oai?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/server/api
status: 200
- url: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/server/api
status: 200
- url: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://oer.uclouvain.be/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibboleth
status: 200
- url: https://api.crossref.org/prefixes/10.14428
status: 200
- url: https://api.datacite.org/dois/10.14428%2FDVN%2FDEQCIM
status: 404
note: datacite negative - prefix is a Crossref prefix
- url: https://uclouvain.be/.well-known/security.txt
status: 200
- url: https://be.linkedin.com/school/uclouvain/
status: 999
note: LinkedIn bot challenge - live, not dead
- url: https://api.uclouvain.be/
status: 503
note: host resolves, no backend - not a surface
- url: https://dial.uclouvain.be/oai
status: 0
note: TCP timeout on 80 and 443 - retired host, pointer removed
- url: https://github.com/uclouvain/osis
status: 404
note: OSIS no longer public - entry removed
x-attribution-note: 'Re-profiled 2026-08-30 under the university pipeline. 36 OpenAPI definitions titled "Dataverse <tag>
API" and their pristine source openapi/_original/uclouvain-dataverse-api.yaml (info.title "Dataverse API", description "Open
source research data repository software.") were the Dataverse project''s own product contract split by tag, not UCLouvain''s
engineering; the same contract is shipped by 8 institutions in this catalog. They were removed together with everything
derived from them: 72 Postman/OpenCollection files, the Dataverse-shaped json-schema, json-structure, json-ld context, vocabulary,
both Spectral rulesets, the 541-operation agentic-access classification and the recorded Dataverse search example. The deployment
itself is kept as a tenant entry. capabilities/uclouvain-capability-edges.yml is also derived from two of the removed Dataverse
specs; it was left on disk because it is untracked work from another run, but its apis.yml pointer has been removed so it
is no longer credited.'
apis:
- aid: uclouvain:orthanc-api
name: Orthanc API
description: 'Orthanc is a free and open-source, vendor-neutral DICOM server and medical-imaging ecosystem. UCLouvain describes
itself as "the innovation engine behind Orthanc": the project is led by its author Sebastien Jodogne inside the Health
Informatics Lab at ICTEAM, and the INGI department hosts and maintains the server infrastructure at orthanc.uclouvain.be.
The REST API contract is generated from the Orthanc source and covers 239 paths / 299 operations across patients, studies,
series, instances, modalities, peers, jobs, plugins and storage. This is the one surface in this repository that is UCLouvain''s
own engineering rather than a purchased platform''s, and the public demo server answers unauthenticated GET /system live.'
humanURL: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/demo/
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: servers[0].url is https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/demo/ under the institution registrable domain; info.description
links to orthanc.uclouvain.be/book; the project homepage names UCLouvain ICTEAM/INGI as host and maintainer
tags:
- Medical Imaging
- DICOM
- Open-Source
- Research Software
- Health Informatics
- Belgium
tags_raw:
- Medical Imaging
- DICOM
- Open Source
- Research Software
- Health Informatics
- Belgium
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/uclouvain-orthanc-api-openapi.yml
- type: x-openapi-original
url: openapi/_original/uclouvain-orthanc-api.json
- type: APIReference
url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/api/index.html
- type: Documentation
url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/book/
- type: x-example
url: examples/uclouvain-orthanc-system-example.json
- aid: uclouvain:dataverse-native-api
name: Open Data @ UCLouvain -- Dataverse deployment (Native + Search API)
description: Open Data @ UCLouvain is the institution's research-data repository, running Dataverse 6.8 on UCLouvain infrastructure
at dataverse.uclouvain.be and minting DOIs under UCLouvain's own Crossref prefix 10.14428. The data, the collections and
the DOIs are UCLouvain's; the API contract is not. The Dataverse Native and Search APIs are the Dataverse project's product
contract, shipped identically by eight institutions in this catalog, so the deployment is recorded here and the generic
spec is deliberately not saved under this slug. GET /api/info/version returned 200 with build 6.8/1994-92d1ec8 on 2026-08-30.
humanURL: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/api
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-evidence: host dataverse.uclouvain.be is UCLouvain-owned, but info.title "Dataverse API" / description "Open
source research data repository software." is the Dataverse project product contract; same title shipped by harvard, maastricht,
ntnu, queens-university-at-kingston and others
x-vendor: Dataverse (The Global Dataverse Community Consortium / Harvard IQSS)
tags:
- Open Data
- Research Data
- Dataverse
- Repository
- Belgium
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://guides.dataverse.org/en/latest/api/native-api.html
- type: x-search-api
url: https://guides.dataverse.org/en/latest/api/search.html
- type: Website
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/university-libraries/uclouvain-dataverse
- aid: uclouvain:dataverse-oai
name: Open Data @ UCLouvain Dataverse OAI-PMH
description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata-harvesting endpoint for the UCLouvain research-data repository. Identify returns repositoryName
"Open Data @ UCLouvain Dataverse OAI Archive", adminEmail cism-support@uclouvain.be, granularity YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ,
earliestDatestamp 2025-11-28. OAI-PMH is an Open Archives Initiative standard rather than a vendor contract, and this
endpoint is operated by UCLouvain on a UCLouvain host, so it is attributed to the institution even though the repository
software underneath is Dataverse.
humanURL: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/oai
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: Identify adminEmail cism-support@uclouvain.be on host dataverse.uclouvain.be; protocol is the OAI-PMH
2.0 open standard, not a vendor-authored contract
tags:
- OAI-PMH
- Open Data
- Metadata
- Research Data
- Harvesting
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
- type: x-conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- aid: uclouvain:dial-pr-rest
name: DIAL.pr (BOREAL) -- DSpace-CRIS REST API
description: DIAL.pr, branded BOREAL, is UCLouvain's institutional repository for the research publications of its professors
and staff. It runs DSpace-CRIS 8.1 (cris-2025.01.00) on the UCLouvain host research.dial.uclouvain.be and exposes the
DSpace HAL+JSON REST API at /server/api, including a live ORCID integration and a 591-field metadata registry. The repository
and its content are UCLouvain's; the REST contract is DSpace-CRIS's, so this is recorded as a tenant deployment. The previously
catalogued host dial.uclouvain.be no longer answers -- DIAL has migrated here.
humanURL: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/home
baseURL: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/server/api
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-evidence: GET /server/api returns dspaceVersion "DSpace 8.1", crisVersion "cris-2025.01.00-SNAPSHOT"; the HAL
API contract is authored by the DSpace/DSpace-CRIS projects, not by UCLouvain
x-vendor: DSpace-CRIS (Lyrasis / 4Science)
tags:
- Institutional Repository
- Research Publications
- DSpace
- Open Access
- Library
- Belgium
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://github.com/DSpace/RestContract
- type: Website
url: https://www.uclouvain.be/en/university-libraries/dial.pr
- aid: uclouvain:dial-pr-oai
name: DIAL.pr OAI-PMH
description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting endpoint for DIAL.pr, UCLouvain''s research-publications repository. Identify returns
repositoryName "Dial.pr", adminEmail bibsys@uclouvain.be, earliestDatestamp 2026-04-07 (the migration date onto DSpace-CRIS).
ListMetadataFormats advertises oai_dc, mods, mets and didl. Institution-operated: the protocol is an open standard and
the endpoint, host and contact are UCLouvain''s.'
humanURL: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/home
baseURL: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/server/oai/request
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: Identify adminEmail bibsys@uclouvain.be on host research.dial.uclouvain.be; OAI-PMH 2.0 open standard
tags:
- OAI-PMH
- Institutional Repository
- Metadata
- Open Access
- Harvesting
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
- type: x-conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- aid: uclouvain:dial-mem-rest
name: DIAL.mem -- DSpace-CRIS REST API
description: 'DIAL.mem is UCLouvain''s institutional repository for master''s theses, part of the DIAL (Digital Access to
Libraries) family. It runs the same DSpace-CRIS 8.1 stack as DIAL.pr, on the UCLouvain host thesis.dial.uclouvain.be,
exposing the DSpace HAL+JSON REST API at /server/api. Institution-hosted, vendor-contracted: recorded as a tenant deployment.'
humanURL: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/server/api
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-evidence: GET /server/api returns dspaceName "Dial.mem", dspaceVersion "DSpace 8.1"; contract authored by the
DSpace/DSpace-CRIS projects
x-vendor: DSpace-CRIS (Lyrasis / 4Science)
tags:
- Institutional Repository
- Theses
- DSpace
- Open Access
- Library
- Belgium
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://github.com/DSpace/RestContract
- aid: uclouvain:dial-mem-oai
name: DIAL.mem OAI-PMH
description: OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting endpoint for DIAL.mem, UCLouvain's master's-thesis repository. Identify returns repositoryName
"Dial.mem", adminEmail bibsys@uclouvain.be, earliestDatestamp 2025-05-14. Institution-operated open-standard harvesting
surface.
humanURL: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/server/oai/request
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: Identify adminEmail bibsys@uclouvain.be on host thesis.dial.uclouvain.be; OAI-PMH 2.0 open standard
tags:
- OAI-PMH
- Theses
- Metadata
- Open Access
- Harvesting
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
- type: x-conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- aid: uclouvain:oer-oai
name: OER-UCLouvain OAI-PMH
description: OER-UCLouvain is the institution's open educational resources repository, running DSpace JSPUI on oer.uclouvain.be
(CNAME dspace.sipr.ucl.ac.be, UCLouvain's own SIPR infrastructure). Its OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint answers at /oai/request with
repositoryName "OER-UCLouvain", adminEmail openeducation-lll@uclouvain.be and an earliestDatestamp of 2016-09-01. It also
holds UCLouvain's published generative-AI strategy documents, making it the machine-readable route to the institution's
AI policy.
humanURL: https://oer.uclouvain.be/
baseURL: https://oer.uclouvain.be/oai/request
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: Identify adminEmail openeducation-lll@uclouvain.be; host oer.uclouvain.be CNAMEs to dspace.sipr.ucl.ac.be,
both UCLouvain registrable domains; OAI-PMH 2.0 open standard
tags:
- OAI-PMH
- Open Educational Resources
- Metadata
- Open Access
- Harvesting
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
- type: x-conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- aid: uclouvain:identity-federation
name: UCLouvain Shibboleth Identity Provider -- SAML 2.0 metadata
description: 'UCLouvain runs its own Shibboleth identity provider and publishes signed SAML 2.0 entity metadata at a stable,
unauthenticated URL. entityID https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibboleth, shibmd:Scope uclouvain.be, OrganizationName "Universite
catholique de Louvain", registered with the Belnet federation since 2012 and exported to eduGAIN (SIRTFI asserted). It
carries an IDPSSODescriptor and an AttributeAuthorityDescriptor with HTTP-Redirect, HTTP-POST, POST-SimpleSign and SOAP
bindings. Two further UCLouvain SAML service providers are in eduGAIN: ipb.uclouvain.be and the CECL ICLE corpus SP. This
is the institution''s most unambiguously institution-owned machine-readable surface, and it is the authentication layer
for everything gated behind UCLouvain affiliation -- there is no API-key portal.'
humanURL: https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibboleth
baseURL: https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibboleth
x-operator: institution
x-operator-evidence: entityID and metadata host are under uclouvain.be; OrganizationName "Universite catholique de Louvain";
registrationAuthority http://federation.belnet.be/ with UCLouvain as the registered entity
tags:
- Identity Federation
- Shibboleth
- SAML
- eduGAIN
- Single Sign-On
- Belgium
properties:
- type: x-authentication
url: authentication/uclouvain-identity-federation.yml
- type: x-conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://federation.belnet.be/
common:
- type: Website
url: https://uclouvain.be/en
- type: GitHubOrganization
url: https://github.com/uclouvain
- type: LinkedIn
url: https://be.linkedin.com/school/uclouvain/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/privacy
- type: OpenData
url: https://dataverse.uclouvain.be/
- type: ResearchRepository
url: https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/home
- type: IdentityFederation
url: https://idp.uclouvain.be/idp/shibboleth
- type: ResearchComputing
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/cism/cism-platform
- type: CourseCatalog
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/study-programme
- type: AIPolicy
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/ai/documents
- type: AITooling
url: https://uclouvain.be/en/ai
- type: Documentation
url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/book/
- type: APIReference
url: https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/api/index.html
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/uclouvain-education-standards.yml
- type: Authentication
url: authentication/uclouvain-identity-federation.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
url: security/uclouvain-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
url: security/uclouvain-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
url: plans/uclouvain-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
url: rate-limits/uclouvain-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
url: finops/uclouvain-finops.yml
- type: Review
url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
email: kin@apievangelist.com
Discovery needs no key. Ratings and market analysis are Pro.
Get an API key
Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we
store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another
provider. See our Privacy Policy and
Terms.