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Semantic Scholar MCP

Research•⭐ 500

Access academic research papers, citations, and scholarly data from Semantic Scholar.

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Claude DesktopCursorAll MCP-compatible clients

Overview

Access academic research papers, citations, and scholarly data from Semantic Scholar.

Setup

Run with npx:

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-semantic-scholar

Configuration

SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY environment variable (optional)

Documentation

Semantic Scholar MCP

Overview

Semantic Scholar MCP is a Model Context Protocol server that provides access to Semantic Scholar, an AI-powered research tool for scientific literature. It enables AI agents to search and retrieve academic papers, citations, and author information with full-text access.

Semantic Scholar uses natural language processing and machine learning to understand scientific papers, making it easier to find relevant research and understand connections between papers.

Features

  • Paper Search — Search millions of academic papers by title, abstract, or keywords
  • Citation Analysis — Find papers that cite a specific paper or are cited by it
  • Author Information — Retrieve author profiles and publication histories
  • Full-Text Access — Access paper abstracts and full text when available
  • Field of Study Classification — Papers are classified by research field
  • Influence Scores — Papers ranked by citation influence

Installation

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-semantic-scholar

Configuration

No API key required for basic usage. For higher rate limits:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-semantic-scholar"],
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

ToolDescription
search_papersSearch for papers by query
get_paper_detailsGet detailed information about a specific paper
get_citationsGet papers that cite a specific paper
get_referencesGet papers referenced by a specific paper
get_author_detailsGet author profile and publications
get_related_papersFind papers similar to a given paper

Usage Examples

Search for Papers

# Search for papers on "transformer models"
papers = semantic_scholar.search_papers(
    query="transformer models attention mechanism",
    limit=10
)

Get Paper Details

# Get details for a specific paper
paper = semantic_scholar.get_paper_details(
    paper_id="CorpusID:12345678"
)
print(paper.title, paper.abstract, paper.authors)

Citation Analysis

# Find papers that cite a specific paper
citations = semantic_scholar.get_citations(
    paper_id="CorpusID:12345678",
    limit=20
)

Claude Desktop Setup

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-semantic-scholar"]
    }
  }
}

Pros

  • ✅ Free to use with no API key required
  • ✅ Access to millions of academic papers
  • ✅ AI-powered relevance ranking
  • ✅ Citation network analysis
  • ✅ Author profile tracking
  • ✅ Field of study classification

Cons

  • ❌ Rate limits on free tier
  • ❌ Some full-text papers require institutional access
  • ❌ Coverage gaps in very recent papers
  • ❌ Limited to academic/scientific content

When to Use

Semantic Scholar MCP is ideal for:

  • Academic research and literature reviews
  • Finding relevant papers for a topic
  • Understanding citation relationships
  • Tracking research trends in a field
  • Finding papers by specific authors

Consider alternatives when:

  • You need non-academic content (use Brave Search)
  • You need real-time news (use Google Search)
  • You need general web content (use Wikipedia)

Resources