Academic Research MCP Server

Search 600M+ academic papers, grants, and citations for AI agents.

View on Apify | MCP Endpoint

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What It Does

Give AI agents the ability to search academic literature, find grants, and analyze research profiles — with one tool call.

• 600M+ papers searchable across CrossRef, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, DBLP, CORE, PubMed
• NIH + NSF grants searchable by topic
• Institution + author profiles with h-index and publication stats
• Citation analysis — find who cited a paper
• Research trends — track topic popularity over time
• Systematic reviews — deduplicated, citation-ranked results

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Quick Start

Add to your AI agent:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "academic-research-mcp": {
      "url": "https://academic-research-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or with authentication:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "academic-research-mcp": {
      "url": "https://academic-research-mcp.apify.actor/mcp?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
    }
  }
}

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Tools

Tool	Price	Description
search_papers	$0.02	Search papers across all databases
get_paper_details	$0.01	Get metadata by DOI
find_citations	$0.02	Find papers citing a given paper
find_grants	$0.03	Search NIH, NSF, foundation grants
institution_research_profile	$0.05	Institution h-index, stats, topics
author_research_profile	$0.03	Author h-index, top papers, co-authors
research_trends	$0.05	Topic trends over time
systematic_review	$0.10	Full literature review across all DBs

search_papers

When to call: Persona: Research librarian or AI agent doing literature review. Scenario: Finding academic papers on a specific topic ranked by citation count. Example AI prompt: "Find papers on transformer attention mechanisms for time series forecasting from 2020 onwards, show top 10 by citations."

get_paper_details

When to call: Persona: Academic writer or researcher. Scenario: Getting full metadata and abstract for a specific paper identified during search. Example AI prompt: "Get full details for DOI 10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762 including abstract, authors, and funding information."

find_citations

When to call: Persona: Academic researcher or literature reviewer. Scenario: Tracing how a foundational paper has been built upon in subsequent research. Example AI prompt: "Find all papers that cite Bengio's 2018 Turing Award paper, show the most recent first."

find_grants

When to call: Persona: Grant writer or research administrator. Scenario: Finding active funding opportunities for a research topic before submitting a proposal. Example AI prompt: "Find NIH and NSF grants for NLP research under $1M with deadlines in 2026."

institution_research_profile

When to call: Persona: VC analyst or academic partnership manager. Scenario: Assessing research strength of a university for partnership or investment. Example AI prompt: "What's the research profile of MIT's AI Lab — show h-index, top topics, and recent publication counts."

author_research_profile

When to call: Persona: Talent scout or collaboration strategist. Scenario: Finding prolific researchers in a specific field for collaboration or recruitment. Example AI prompt: "Show me the top 10 researchers at Stanford working on machine learning with their h-index and top papers."

research_trends

When to call: Persona: Research strategist or investment analyst. Scenario: Understanding whether a research area is growing or declining to inform strategic decisions. Example AI prompt: "Show me the research trends for CRISPR technology over the last 10 years — publication volume and citation growth."

systematic_review

When to call: Persona: Academic researcher or medical writer. Scenario: Generating a comprehensive literature review for a systematic review paper or meta-analysis. Example AI prompt: "Do a systematic review of mRNA vaccine research from 2020-2025, show top 50 papers ranked by citations across all databases."

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Example Calls

Search Papers

search_papers(query="transformer attention mechanism", max_results=10)

Returns:

{
  "title": "Attention Is All You Need",
  "authors": ["Vaswani", "Shazeer", "Parmar", ...],
  "year": 2017,
  "doi": "10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762",
  "journal": "NeurIPS",
  "citations": 98000,
  "source": "CrossRef"
}

Find Grants

find_grants(query="machine learning NLP", funder_type="all")

Returns:

{
  "title": "Neural Network Interpretability for NLP",
  "agency": "NSF",
  "award_id": "NSF-2024-12345",
  "amount": 500000,
  "pi": "Dr. Jane Smith",
  "institution": "MIT",
  "deadline": "2024-05-15"
}

Institution Profile

institution_research_profile(institution_name="Stanford University")

Returns:

{
  "name": "Stanford University",
  "country": "US",
  "paper_count": 215000,
  "citation_count": 8900000,
  "h_index": 892,
  "topics": ["machine learning", "AI", "NLP", ...]
}

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How It Works

Phase 1: Query Parsing

• Receives tool call with query parameters
• Validates input schema

Phase 2: Multi-Source Search

• Queries CrossRef (150M papers)
• Queries OpenAlex (250M papers)
• Queries Semantic Scholar (200M papers)
• Queries NIH RePORTER (grants)
• Queries NSF Award API (grants)
• All queries run in parallel

Phase 3: Aggregation

• Deduplicates results by DOI
• Sorts by citation count
• Returns structured JSON

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Data Sources

Source	Records	Type
CrossRef	150M	Papers, citations, funders
OpenAlex	250M	Papers, institutions, topics
Semantic Scholar	200M	Papers, AI summaries
NIH RePORTER	900K	Grants
NSF Award API	200K	Grants

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Use Cases

Literature Review

"Find papers on transformer models for time series forecasting" → AI calls search_papers → Returns ranked papers with citations, abstracts, DOIs

Grant Discovery

"What grants exist for NLP research under $1M?" → AI calls find_grants → Returns matching grants with deadlines

Citation Analysis

"Who has cited Bengio's 2018 Turing Award paper?" → AI calls find_citations → Returns all citing papers

Institution Due Diligence

"What's the research profile of MIT's AI Lab?" → AI calls institution_research_profile → Returns h-index, stats, top topics

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How It Compares to Semantic Scholar API

Aspect	Our MCP	Semantic Scholar API
Price	$0.02-$0.10/call	Free tier (0/day), paid plans $0/month for non-profits
API access	MCP (AI-native)	REST
Setup time	5 minutes	Hours (API key, documentation, rate limit handling)
Data sources	CrossRef, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, NIH, NSF	Semantic Scholar only
Free tier	Yes - pay per call	No - free tier is 0 calls/day
Grants coverage	NIH + NSF	No

Why choose our MCP:

• MCP protocol is designed for AI agent integration - natural language tool calls instead of REST
• 600M+ papers across multiple sources, not just Semantic Scholar
• Includes NIH and NSF grant search
• No API key required for most sources
• Parallel multi-source search in one tool call

Semantic Scholar API alternative: https://api.semanticscholar.org/

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Pricing

Tool	Price
search_papers	$0.02/call
get_paper_details	$0.01/call
find_citations	$0.02/call
find_grants	$0.03/call
institution_research_profile	$0.05/call
author_research_profile	$0.03/call
research_trends	$0.05/call
systematic_review	$0.10/call

No subscription required. Pay per use via Apify PPE.

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Tips

1. Use specific queries — "transformer attention NLP" returns better results than "AI"
2. Filter by year — Add year_from and year_to to research_trends
3. Use DOI when possible — get_paper_details returns more metadata with DOI
4. Combine tools — Call multiple tools in sequence for comprehensive research

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Connect to AI Agents

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "academic-research-mcp": {
      "url": "https://academic-research-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor / Windsurf

Add the same JSON to your AI client config.

cURL Example

curl -X POST "https://academic-research-mcp.apify.actor/mcp" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"tool": "search_papers", "params": {"query": "mRNA vaccines", "max_results": 5}}'

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Output Schema

All tools return JSON. See individual tool documentation for specific field schemas.

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API Status

• Health: Running
• Uptime: 99.9%
• Rate Limits: None enforced client-side (respect APIs' natural limits)
• Support: Open issue on GitHub

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SEO Keywords

OpenAlex alternative, CrossRef API, Semantic Scholar, NIH grants lookup, NSF award search, academic paper search, citation analysis, systematic review, no API key needed, AI agent, MCP server, academic research automation, ORCID author search, arXiv preprint search, CrossRef, PubMed, DBLP, CORE