🔬 Semantic Scholar MCP Server

PyPI version License: MIT MCP Python 3.10+

The most comprehensive MCP server for academic research. Direct access to 200M+ papers from Semantic Scholar within Claude Desktop.

🚀 Features

Tool	Description
`semantic_scholar_search_papers`	Advanced paper search with filters (year, field, citations, open access)
`semantic_scholar_get_paper`	Full paper details with optional citations and references
`semantic_scholar_search_authors`	Find researchers by name
`semantic_scholar_get_author`	Author profiles with h-index, publications, affiliations
`semantic_scholar_recommendations`	AI-powered related paper discovery
`semantic_scholar_bulk_papers`	Batch retrieval of up to 500 papers

Supported ID Formats:

Semantic Scholar ID
DOI (DOI:10.1038/...)
ArXiv (ARXIV:2106.15928)
PubMed (PMID:32908142)
ACL (ACL:P19-1285)
CorpusId (CorpusId:215416146)

📦 Installation

Option 1: pip (Recommended)

pip install semantic-scholar-mcp

Option 2: From Source

git clone https://github.com/smaniches/semantic-scholar-mcp.git cd semantic-scholar-mcp pip install -e .

🔑 Get Your API Key

Go to Semantic Scholar API
Sign up for a free API key
Note your rate limit (typically 1-100 requests/second depending on tier)

⚙️ Configuration

Claude Desktop Setup

Add to your Claude Desktop config file:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{ "mcpServers": { "semantic_scholar": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "semantic_scholar_mcp"], "env": { "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here" } } } }

Then restart Claude Desktop.

💡 Usage Examples

Search Papers

Search for "transformer attention mechanism" papers from 2023 with at least 100 citations

Get Paper Details

Get details for DOI:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 including its top 20 citations

Find Related Papers

Get recommendations based on paper 649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b

Author Search

Find author "Yoshua Bengio" and list their recent publications

Bulk Retrieval

Retrieve these papers: DOI:10.1038/nature12373, ARXIV:2106.15928, PMID:32908142

📊 Rate Limits

Tier	Requests/Second	How to Get
No API Key	1 req/sec	Default
Free API Key	1 req/sec	Sign up
Academic Partner	10-100 req/sec	Apply via S2

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐ │ Claude Desktop │────▶│ semantic-scholar-mcp │────▶│ Semantic Scholar│ │ (MCP Client) │◀────│ (This Server) │◀────│ API │ └─────────────────┘ └──────────────────────┘ └─────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ stdio (JSON-RPC) │ Your API Key │ HTTPS │ Local process │ Local machine │ 200M+ papers

Your API key never leaves your machine. The MCP server runs locally.

🛠️ Development

# Clone git clone https://github.com/smaniches/semantic-scholar-mcp.git cd semantic-scholar-mcp # Install dev dependencies pip install -e ".[dev]" # Run tests pytest # Type checking mypy src/

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

👤 Author

Santiago Maniches

🏢 Founder & CEO, TOPOLOGICA LLC
🔬 ORCID: 0009-0005-6480-1987
💼 LinkedIn: santiago-maniches
🌐 Website: topologica.ai

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please read our Contributing Guidelines.

📬 Support

🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions
📧 Contact: santiago@topologica.ai

⭐ Star History

If this tool helps your research, please star the repo!

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GitHub Repository

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Semantic Scholar MCP Server