The University of Lausanne (UNIL) is a public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1537, with roughly 17,000 students across seven faculties and ROR identifier https://ror.org/019whta54. UNIL publishes no developer portal, no API key programme, no API terms and no changelog, and no central catalogue of its own interfaces exists — but unlike most of this cohort its small programmable footprint is genuinely its own rather than a vendor's contract wearing its name. Three surfaces answer anonymously on UNIL's own registrable domain: the SPICA single-cell / spatial atlas JSON API at spica.unil.ch; the IRIS institutional research repository's DSpace-CRIS REST API at api.unil.ch/iris/server/api, behind a Kong gateway, with 253,799 indexed objects reachable through Discovery search while /core/items and /core/bitstreams answer 401; and two anonymous OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting contexts on the same host, one of them declaring OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS Managers v1.1. Beyond the contracts, UNIL operates its own Shibboleth identity provider (entityID https://aai.unil.ch/idp/shibboleth, scope unil.ch) registered in SWITCHaai and exported to eduGAIN, and holds a DataCite repository registration minting DOIs under prefix 10.48657. Everything else — student information, timetables, course registration — sits behind the my.unil.ch SSO gateway and is not documented as an API anywhere. No OpenAPI, AsyncAPI or MCP server is published by UNIL itself; every contract in this repository was written by API Evangelist from live probes and is marked as such.
University of Lausanne publishes 6 APIs on the APIs.io network, including SPICA Atlas Projects.json API, SPICA Atlas Projects API, IRIS Repository Core API (DSpace REST), and 3 more. Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Switzerland, and Open Science.
The University of Lausanne catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.
University of Lausanne’s developer surface includes documentation, API reference, engineering blog, support, authentication, and 24 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 does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare
no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's
denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to
upsert.
The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them,
because the conditional facet above carries the other
15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped
maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal
weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.
The SPICA single-cell / spatial atlas project listing, on UNIL's own host spica.unil.ch. Anonymous open read, confirmed 200 on 2026-09-01. SPICA is UNIL-built and UNIL-run; the ...
SPICA project query and archive download on UNIL's own host: filter by reference atlas (ref_id), free-text search across metadata and paginate. /projects/query.json confirmed 20...
Community and collection resources of IRIS, UNIL's institutional research information system and open-access repository, served from UNIL's own host api.unil.ch behind a Kong ga...
DSpace Discovery search across everything indexed in IRIS. Confirmed anonymous 200 on 2026-09-01, reporting a last page of 253,798 at size=1, i.e. 253,799 indexed objects. This ...
The IRIS DSpace REST root document, exposing version metadata and a HAL hypermedia catalogue of 92 link relations. On 2026-09-01 it reported irisVersion 1.3.13 and irisRole "fol...
UNIL's own Shibboleth identity provider, entityID https://aai.unil.ch/idp/shibboleth, carrying an IDPSSODescriptor with OrganizationName "unil.ch", OrganizationDisplayName "Univ...
UNIL's membership of the DataCite DOI registry, not DataCite's contract. api.datacite.org/clients?query=unil returns client PWKB.PGDJAM, name "Old DOIs Unil", clientType reposit...
UNIL's entry in the Research Organization Registry, https://ror.org/019whta54, established 1537, domain unil.ch, cross-walked to Fundref 501100006390, GRID grid.9851.5, ISNI 000...
aid: university-of-lausanne
name: University of Lausanne
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'The University of Lausanne (UNIL) is a public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1537,
with roughly 17,000 students across seven faculties and ROR identifier https://ror.org/019whta54. UNIL publishes no developer
portal, no API key programme, no API terms and no changelog, and no central catalogue of its own interfaces exists — but
unlike most of this cohort its small programmable footprint is genuinely its own rather than a vendor''s contract wearing
its name. Three surfaces answer anonymously on UNIL''s own registrable domain: the SPICA single-cell / spatial atlas JSON
API at spica.unil.ch; the IRIS institutional research repository''s DSpace-CRIS REST API at api.unil.ch/iris/server/api,
behind a Kong gateway, with 253,799 indexed objects reachable through Discovery search while /core/items and /core/bitstreams
answer 401; and two anonymous OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting contexts on the same host, one of them declaring OpenAIRE Guidelines
for CRIS Managers v1.1. Beyond the contracts, UNIL operates its own Shibboleth identity provider (entityID https://aai.unil.ch/idp/shibboleth,
scope unil.ch) registered in SWITCHaai and exported to eduGAIN, and holds a DataCite repository registration minting DOIs
under prefix 10.48657. Everything else — student information, timetables, course registration — sits behind the my.unil.ch
SSO gateway and is not documented as an API anywhere. No OpenAPI, AsyncAPI or MCP server is published by UNIL itself; every
contract in this repository was written by API Evangelist from live probes and is marked as such.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
model: saas
open_source: false
commercial: false
callable_host: true
label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
confidence: high
source:
- openapi
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: derived
accessModel:
pricing: free
onboarding: none
trial: false
try_now: false
public: true
label: Free · anonymous open read, no registration
confidence: high
source:
- plans
- probed
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: probed
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-lausanne.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-lausanne/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Switzerland
- Open Science
- Research Data
- Institutional Repository
- Research Repository
- Identity Federation
- OAI-PMH
- Course Catalog
- Research Computing
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-09-01'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-projects-json-api
name: SPICA Atlas Projects.json API
x-operator: institution
description: The SPICA single-cell / spatial atlas project listing, on UNIL's own host spica.unil.ch. Anonymous open read,
confirmed 200 on 2026-09-01. SPICA is UNIL-built and UNIL-run; the host, the application and the data are all the institution's,
which makes it the clearest institution-operated contract in this repository. The OpenAPI was reconstructed by API Evangelist
from https://spica.unil.ch/home/api and confirmed against live responses — UNIL publishes no machine-readable contract
of its own.
humanURL: https://spica.unil.ch/home/api
baseURL: https://spica.unil.ch
tags:
- Projects.json
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-projects-json-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://spica.unil.ch/home/api
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-projects-api
name: SPICA Atlas Projects API
x-operator: institution
description: 'SPICA project query and archive download on UNIL''s own host: filter by reference atlas (ref_id), free-text
search across metadata and paginate. /projects/query.json confirmed 200 anonymously on 2026-09-01.'
humanURL: https://spica.unil.ch/home/api
baseURL: https://spica.unil.ch
tags:
- Project
tags_raw:
- Projects
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-projects-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://spica.unil.ch/home/api
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-core-api
name: IRIS Repository Core API (DSpace REST)
x-operator: institution
description: Community and collection resources of IRIS, UNIL's institutional research information system and open-access
repository, served from UNIL's own host api.unil.ch behind a Kong gateway. /core/communities and /core/collections both
confirmed anonymous 200 on 2026-09-01. The software is DSpace-CRIS/IRIS and the REST contract shape is DSpace's, so no
vendor spec is imported here — what is saved is UNIL's own deployment, reconstructed from live responses against UNIL's
host. iris@unil.ch is the declared administrative contact.
humanURL: https://iris.unil.ch
baseURL: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
tags:
- Core
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-core-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-discover-api
name: IRIS Repository Discover API (DSpace Discovery)
x-operator: institution
description: DSpace Discovery search across everything indexed in IRIS. Confirmed anonymous 200 on 2026-09-01, reporting
a last page of 253,798 at size=1, i.e. 253,799 indexed objects. This matters because /core/items and /core/bitstreams
both answer 401 to an anonymous client, so Discovery is the only callable route to item-level metadata over REST.
humanURL: https://iris.unil.ch
baseURL: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
tags:
- Discover
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-discover-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-iris-repository-dspace-rest-api-api
name: IRIS Repository API root (DSpace REST)
x-operator: institution
description: The IRIS DSpace REST root document, exposing version metadata and a HAL hypermedia catalogue of 92 link relations.
On 2026-09-01 it reported irisVersion 1.3.13 and irisRole "follower" — drifted from the 1.3.8 / "leader" observed on 2026-06-03,
announced nowhere. dspaceVersion and crisVersion both report the literal string "/", so the underlying DSpace version
is undisclosed.
humanURL: https://iris.unil.ch
baseURL: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
tags:
- IRIS Repository (DSpace REST API)
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-iris-repository-dspace-rest-api-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
- aid: university-of-lausanne:university-of-lausanne-oai-pmh-api
name: IRIS OAI-PMH
x-operator: institution
description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting for IRIS, on UNIL''s own host. Two contexts answer anonymously: /oai/request
(11 metadata prefixes — oai_dc, qdc, dim, mods, marc, rdf, ore, mets, didl, etdms, uketd_dc — with community and collection
sets) and /oai/openairecris, which declares OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS Managers v1.1 compatibility. Identify reports
repositoryName "IRIS (follower)", repositoryIdentifier iris.unil.ch, adminEmail iris@unil.ch and earliestDatestamp 2025-05-19T06:21:03Z.
This is the institution''s strongest standards-conformant machine surface after its IdP, and it satisfies the education
regime''s oai-pmh standard.'
humanURL: https://iris.unil.ch
baseURL: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/oai/request
tags:
- OAI-PMH
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/university-of-lausanne-oai-pmh-api-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.unil.ch/ci/dcsr
- aid: university-of-lausanne:unil-shibboleth-idp
name: UNIL Shibboleth Identity Provider (SAML 2.0 metadata)
x-operator: federation
description: 'UNIL''s own Shibboleth identity provider, entityID https://aai.unil.ch/idp/shibboleth, carrying an IDPSSODescriptor
with OrganizationName "unil.ch", OrganizationDisplayName "Université de Lausanne" and a shibmd:Scope of unil.ch. Registered
in the SWITCHaai federation and exported to eduGAIN (confirmed present in mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml on 2026-09-01).
145 distinct unil.ch entityIDs are registered in the same aggregate, including a second SAML entity at http://sts.unil.ch/adfs/services/trust
and a Keycloak realm at bix.unil.ch/keycloak/realms/edu_id. Recorded as federation rather than discarded as a shared host:
the entityID, the scope, the organisation and the identities are UNIL''s, while the SSO endpoints run on SWITCH''s edu-ID
platform at unil.login.eduid.ch. Note that aai.unil.ch has no public A record — the entityID is a URI, not a fetchable
host — and SWITCH runs no per-entity MDQ service, so the metadata is readable only from the published aggregates. This
is not a developer API and there is no client registration.'
humanURL: https://www.unil.ch/ci/fr/home/menuinst/catalogue-de-services/authentification-et-comptes/authentification-aai.html
baseURL: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai+idp.xml
tags:
- Identity Federation
- SAML
- Shibboleth
properties:
- type: Metadata
url: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai+idp.xml
- type: Example
url: examples/university-of-lausanne-shibboleth-idp-metadata-example.xml
- type: Documentation
url: https://wiki.unil.ch/ci/books/authentification-edu-id
- aid: university-of-lausanne:datacite-repository-registration
name: DataCite repository registration (UNIL data service)
x-operator: registry
description: UNIL's membership of the DataCite DOI registry, not DataCite's contract. api.datacite.org/clients?query=unil
returns client PWKB.PGDJAM, name "Old DOIs Unil", clientType repository, created 2025-12-12, administered under consortium
organisation PWKB (FORS — Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, https://ror.org/00weppy16). DOIs minted under
it carry prefix 10.48657 and publisher "UNIL data service" (for example 10.48657/mc4b-0958, 10.48657/3499-cq82). Recorded
as a fact about the institution; the registry's own specification belongs to DataCite's repo, never to UNIL's.
humanURL: https://commons.datacite.org/repositories/pwkb.pgdjam
baseURL: https://api.datacite.org
tags:
- DataCite
- DOI
- Research Data
properties:
- type: Registration
url: https://api.datacite.org/clients/pwkb.pgdjam
- type: Example
url: examples/university-of-lausanne-datacite-client-example.json
- aid: university-of-lausanne:ror-registration
name: ROR organisation registration
x-operator: registry
description: 'UNIL''s entry in the Research Organization Registry, https://ror.org/019whta54, established 1537, domain unil.ch,
cross-walked to Fundref 501100006390, GRID grid.9851.5, ISNI 0000 0001 2165 4204 and Wikidata Q658975. A membership, not
a contract: the ROR API is ROR''s.'
humanURL: https://ror.org/019whta54
baseURL: https://api.ror.org
tags:
- ROR
- Identifiers
properties:
- type: Registration
url: https://api.ror.org/organizations/https://ror.org/019whta54
common:
- type: Website
url: https://www.unil.ch
- type: Documentation
url: https://spica.unil.ch/home/api
- type: APIReference
url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
- type: GitHubOrganization
url: https://github.com/openscienceunil
- type: LinkedIn
url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-lausanne/
- type: Blog
url: https://news.unil.ch/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
url: https://www.unil.ch/unil/en/home/termes/conditions/protection-des-donnees.html
- type: TermsOfService
url: https://www.unil.ch/unil/en/home/termes/conditions/informations-legales.html
- type: Support
url: https://www.unil.ch/ci/en/home/menuinst/catalogue-de-services/support-et-formation/help-desk.html
- type: SecurityTxt
url: https://www.unil.ch/.well-known/security.txt
- type: SignIn
url: https://my.unil.ch/
- type: IdentityFederation
url: https://www.unil.ch/ci/fr/home/menuinst/catalogue-de-services/authentification-et-comptes/authentification-aai.html
- type: ResearchRepository
url: https://iris.unil.ch
- type: CourseCatalog
url: https://applicationspub.unil.ch/interpub/noauth/php/Ud/index.php?v_lang=en
- type: ResearchComputing
url: https://www.unil.ch/ci/dcsr
- type: AIPolicy
url: https://www.unil.ch/unil/en/home/menuinst/universite/intelligence-artificielle.html
- type: AITooling
url: https://www.unil.ch/unil/en/home/menuinst/universite/intelligence-artificielle/faq.html
- type: OpenScience
url: https://www.unil.ch/unil/en/home/menuinst/recherche/open-science.html
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-lausanne-conformance.yml
- type: Authentication
url: authentication/university-of-lausanne-authentication.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
url: errors/university-of-lausanne-errors.yml
- type: Lifecycle
url: lifecycle/university-of-lausanne-lifecycle.yml
- type: Vocabulary
url: vocabulary/university-of-lausanne-vocabulary.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
url: agentic-access/university-of-lausanne-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
url: security/university-of-lausanne-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
url: plans/university-of-lausanne-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
url: rate-limits/university-of-lausanne-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
url: finops/university-of-lausanne-finops.yml
- type: Review
url: review.yml
x-coverage:
state: covered
reason: covered
detail: 'UNIL operates three anonymously callable surfaces on its own registrable domain and all three are contracted here:
the SPICA atlas API (spica.unil.ch), the IRIS DSpace-CRIS REST API and its two OAI-PMH contexts (api.unil.ch/iris/server).
Its own Shibboleth IdP is registered in SWITCHaai and exported to eduGAIN, and it holds a DataCite repository registration
under DOI prefix 10.48657. What UNIL does NOT publish is equally settled and was probed rather than assumed: no developer
portal (developer.unil.ch and developers.unil.ch do not resolve), no open-data portal (data.unil.ch and opendata.unil.ch
do not resolve), no llms.txt, no OpenAPI of its own, no MCP server, and no machine-readable course catalog — the public
course catalogue at applicationspub.unil.ch is HTML with no JSON or XML export. The Kong gateway at api.unil.ch routes
only /iris/server; every other prefix probed returned the gateway''s own 404. The previous institutional repository at
serval.unil.ch is correctly retired with a hard HTTP 410 and must not be re-listed. Student information, timetables and
registration sit behind my.unil.ch SSO and are not documented as APIs. No vendor contract was found attributed to UNIL,
and none was saved.'
evidence:
- url: https://spica.unil.ch/projects.json
status: 200
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api
status: 200
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api/core/collections
status: 200
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api/discover/search/objects?size=1
status: 200
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api/core/items
status: 401
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/oai/openairecris?verb=Identify
status: 200
- url: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai+idp.xml
status: 200
- url: https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml
status: 200
- url: https://api.datacite.org/clients/pwkb.pgdjam
status: 200
- url: https://api.ror.org/organizations/https://ror.org/019whta54
status: 200
- url: https://serval.unil.ch/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 410
- url: https://api.unil.ch/
status: 404
- url: https://www.unil.ch/llms.txt
status: 404
- url: https://www.unil.ch/.well-known/security.txt
status: 200
- url: https://applicationspub.unil.ch/interpub/noauth/php/Ud/index.php?v_lang=en
status: 200
checked: '2026-09-01'
x-enrichment:
pipeline: pipeline-university
run: '2026-09-01'
note: 'Re-profiled under the university pipeline''s operator axis. Every surface was re-probed and assigned an x-operator;
no vendor-operated contract was found in this repository and none was removed. Two surface classes the June 2026 pass
missed were added: the IRIS OAI-PMH interface and UNIL''s own Shibboleth identity provider. The apis.yml entries for the
IRIS surfaces carried baseURL https://spica.unil.ch, which was wrong — they have been re-based onto api.unil.ch.'
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
email: kin@apievangelist.com
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