Academic Search MCP

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for academic research, powered by the OpenAlex API.

Features

• Search articles by keywords, title phrases, or topics with domain/field classification

• Get article details including citations, authors, publication date, and referenced works

• Look up author profiles with h-index, citation counts, affiliations, and top publications

• Language filtering for results in specific languages (ISO 639-1 codes)

Related MCP server: mcp-openalex

Installation

uv sync

Usage

Run the server

uv run mcp-server-http

Or with a custom transport:

uv run python -m academic_search_mcp

MCP Client Configuration

Add to your MCP client configuration (e.g., Claude Desktop, Cursor):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "academic-search": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "mcp-server-http"]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

search_articles

Search for academic articles by query.

Parameters:

• query (string, required): Search keywords, title phrases, or topic

• limit (integer, optional): Max number of results (1-50), default 10

• language (string, optional): Filter by language using ISO 639-1 code (e.g. 'en', 'fr', 'de')

Returns: List of articles with title, authors, publication date, citation count, and domain/field classification.

get_article_details

Get detailed information about a specific article.

Parameters:

• identifier (string, required): OpenAlex ID (e.g. /works/W1234567890), DOI (e.g. 10.xxxx/xxxxx), or full title

Returns: Full article details including abstract, authorships, concepts, references, and metadata.

get_author_info

Look up an author's profile information.

Parameters:

• name (string, required): Author full name (e.g. 'Geoffrey Hinton')

Returns: Author h-index, total citations, affiliations, and top publications.

API

This server uses the OpenAlex API as its data source. OpenAlex provides free, open access to the world's best summary of scholarly papers and publications.

• API Documentation: https://docs.openalex.org/

• API Base URL: https://api.openalex.org

Development

# Install dependencies
uv sync

# Run the server
uv run mcp-server-http

# Type checking (if configured)
uv run mypy .

License

MIT