Academic Search MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for searching, filtering, and exploring academic papers across multiple databases, with citation graph walking.

Providers: Semantic Scholar, Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed

Features

• Multi-provider search — unified interface across 4 academic databases
• Universal regex filtering — regex post-filtering on all providers (not just Semantic Scholar)
• Rich post-hoc filters — year range, citation count, journal, publication type, open access, author
• Citation graph walk — random walk on the Semantic Scholar citation graph with backtracking, cross-edge detection, and topic-aware pruning
• Text similarity — pure-Python TF cosine similarity for topic drift detection and most-similar candidate selection (no heavy dependencies)
• Stats — per-query metadata on authors, years, and field coverage
• Normalised output — all providers return data in the same schema

Tools

search_papers

Search papers by keyword with optional regex post-filtering on title and abstract.

Parameters: query, search_type, limit, regex_filter, regex_search_fields, match_mode, year_min, year_max, min_citation_count, max_citation_count, open_access_only, has_pdf, journal, exclude_journals, publication_types, exclude_publication_types, author, has_abstract, provider

search_by_author

Find papers by author name with the same post-hoc filters.

explore_citations

Walk the Semantic Scholar citation graph step by step, starting from a seed paper.

Includes the same post-hoc filters as search_papers.

get_paper_stats

Fetch papers and compute statistics: field availability, author counts, publication year distributions.

build_extended_query

Preview how a regex pattern gets transformed for a given provider's API.

Usage

Via uvx (recommended)

uvx academic-search

Via uv run

uv run --with academic-search academic-search

From source

git clone ...
cd academic-search
uv run academic-search

With Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "academic-search": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["academic-search"]
    }
  }
}

Development

uv sync
uv run academic-search

Providers

Design Notes

• query and regex_filter are separate — the API query is plain text; regex filtering is a post-hoc step on all providers
• Citation walk is a true graph walk — one step at a time, not bucket collection. Uses backtracking, cross-edge recording, and per-step filtering
• Caching — API responses for (paper_id, direction) are cached per walk to avoid redundant fetches during backtracking
• Text similarity — pure-Python TF cosine similarity (no sentence-transformers); used for most_similar bias and stop_similarity pruning
• No API key required — all providers have free tiers, but Semantic Scholar rate limits are ~1 req/5s without a key. Set S2_API_KEY for up to 100 req/s