Academic MCP Server

Scholarly search: OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, OpenCitations and PubMed in one endpoint.

Remote serverstreamable-http

What is the Academic MCP server?

Academic MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on Academic directly instead of describing what you should do. Scholarly search: OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, OpenCitations and PubMed in one endpoint.

What you get

Seven remote MCP servers that expose 53 web scrapers as tools for AI agents. Hosted on Apify, streamable HTTP, billed per result delivered on the caller's own Apify account.

Configuration and credentials

You will need one environment variable: YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

Setting it up

Being a remote server, there is no local install. You register the endpoint with your client, authorise it once, and the tools appear.

Choosing this one

Plenty of developer tooling servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. It is maintained by com.themineworks; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.

Before you rely on it

  • Your data travels to the provider's service, so the usual questions apply about what you send and what they retain.
  • Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
  • MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the academic mcp server does with a few real requests.

How to install the Academic MCP server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "company-diligence": {
      "url": "https://themineworks--company-diligence-mcp.apify.actor/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.

Configuration

VariableDescriptionRequired
YOUR_APIFY_TOKENCredential the server authenticates with.Yes

Frequently asked questions

It connects Academic to MCP-compatible AI assistants such as Claude and Cursor. Instead of copying data back and forth by hand, the assistant works with Academic directly.