OpenAlex Research
Provides access to OpenAlex's catalog of 240+ million scholarly works through 18 specialized tools for conducting literature reviews, analyzing citations, tracking research trends, and mapping the scholarly landscape including authors, institutions,
What is OpenAlex Research?
OpenAlex Research is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code to provides access to openalex's catalog of 240+ million scholarly works through 18 specialized tools for conducting literature reviews, analyzing citations, tracking research trends, and mapping the sch...
Provides access to OpenAlex's catalog of 240+ million scholarly works through 18 specialized tools for conducting literature reviews, analyzing citations, tracking research trends, and mapping the scholarly landscape including authors, institutions,
This server falls under the Search & Data Extraction category on MCPgee, the world's largest MCP server directory with 33,000+ servers.
Features
- Provides access to OpenAlex's catalog of 240+ million schola
Use Cases
Maintainer
Works with
Installation
Manual Installation
npx openalex-research-mcp-serverConfiguration
Configuration Details
claude_desktop_config.json
Performance
Response Metrics
Resource Usage
How to Set Up and Use OpenAlex Research
The OpenAlex Research MCP server connects AI assistants to OpenAlex's catalog of 240+ million scholarly works through 31 specialized tools covering literature search, citation analysis, author profiling, institution research, and trend tracking. It provides credibility-gated search against curated journal presets (UTD24, FT50, AJG tiers, top AI conferences) and institution group presets (Ivy League, top US research universities), making it a powerful tool for academic researchers, data scientists, and analysts who need systematic access to the scholarly literature directly from their AI assistant.
Prerequisites
- Node.js 18 or later installed
- Optional: email address for OpenAlex 'polite pool' rate limit tier
- Optional: OpenAlex premium API key for higher rate limits
- An MCP-compatible client such as Claude Desktop
Install the package
Install the OpenAlex Research MCP server globally via npm, or use npx to run it without a global install.
npm install -g openalex-research-mcp
# or run directly:
npx openalex-research-mcpRun the interactive setup (recommended)
Use the built-in setup command to auto-detect your Claude Desktop config, enter your email, and write the configuration in one step.
npx openalex-research-mcp setupOr configure manually
If you prefer manual setup, add the server to your Claude Desktop config file. On macOS the config is at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json.
{
"mcpServers": {
"openalex": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "openalex-research-mcp"],
"env": {
"OPENALEX_EMAIL": "[email protected]"
}
}
}
}Restart Claude Desktop
After writing the configuration, restart Claude Desktop to load the new MCP server.
Verify with a test search
Ask Claude to search for a known paper or author to confirm the server is connected and returning results.
OpenAlex Research Examples
Client configuration
Example claude_desktop_config.json for the OpenAlex Research MCP server with email for polite pool access.
{
"mcpServers": {
"openalex": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "openalex-research-mcp"],
"env": {
"OPENALEX_EMAIL": "[email protected]",
"OPENALEX_API_KEY": "your_premium_api_key_if_any"
}
}
}
}Prompts to try
Example research queries to use with Claude once the OpenAlex MCP server is connected.
- "Find the top cited papers on transformer architectures in machine learning from 2017-2023"
- "Who are the most prolific authors in the field of quantum computing, ranked by h-index?"
- "Search for papers on AI fairness published in UTD24 journals since 2020"
- "Show me the citation network for the attention is all you need paper"
- "What are the trending research topics in climate science over the last 3 years?"
- "Find seminal papers in reinforcement learning with over 1000 citations"
- "Search for papers by researchers at MIT and Stanford on large language models"Troubleshooting OpenAlex Research
Rate limiting errors from the OpenAlex API
Set OPENALEX_EMAIL to your real email address to join OpenAlex's polite pool, which provides higher rate limits. If you have a premium API key, also set OPENALEX_API_KEY. The server includes retry logic with exponential backoff, but sustained heavy usage requires the polite pool.
npx setup command cannot find the Claude Desktop config file
Run npx openalex-research-mcp setup --config-path to see the detected path. If wrong, manually create the config at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_<id>\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows.
Tools return empty results for valid queries
OpenAlex entity IDs use the format W (works), A (authors), I (institutions), S (sources). When using get_entity or get_work, ensure you are passing the correct OpenAlex ID format. Use search_works first to discover valid IDs before fetching individual records.
Frequently Asked Questions about OpenAlex Research
What is OpenAlex Research?
OpenAlex Research is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to openalex's catalog of 240+ million scholarly works through 18 specialized tools for conducting literature reviews, analyzing citations, tracking research trends, and mapping the scholarly landscape including authors, institutions, It connects AI assistants to external tools and data sources through a standardized interface.
How do I install OpenAlex Research?
Follow the installation instructions on the OpenAlex Research GitHub repository. Clone the repo, install dependencies, and add the server config to your AI client.
Which AI clients work with OpenAlex Research?
OpenAlex Research works with all major MCP-compatible AI clients including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Windsurf, and Cline.
Is OpenAlex Research free to use?
Yes, OpenAlex Research is open source and available under the MIT License license. You can use it freely in both personal and commercial projects.
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