Vinkius

OpenAlex MCP. Analyze global research trends & metrics

OpenAlex connects your AI agent to 250M+ scholarly works, giving you a free alternative to expensive database platforms like Scopus or Web of Science. Search papers, map institutional research output, and track author impact using open bibliometric data. It’s the world’s largest catalog for tracking academic knowledge.

OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Claude Claude
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with ChatGPT ChatGPT
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Cursor Cursor
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Gemini Gemini
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Windsurf Windsurf
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with VS Code VS Code
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with JetBrains JetBrains
OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Vercel Vercel
See Vinkius in Action

Give Claude and any AI agent real-world access

Search specific academic works

Get full metadata details on any single paper using its unique OpenAlex ID or DOI.

Profile researchers' impact

Find authors worldwide and review their total publication counts, citation metrics, h-index scores, and current affiliations.

Map institutional research output

Explore the collective body of work for universities, hospitals, or labs, seeing where they publish and their global focus areas.

Identify emerging scientific topics

Discover the most researched concepts globally by viewing topics ranked by the total number of published works.

Verify open access status

Determine instantly if a scholarly work is open access (green, gold, hybrid, or bronze) for full-text availability assessment.

Waiting for input…

AI Agent
OpenAlex

What AI agents can do with OpenAlex: Research Data Access (5 Tools)

These tools let you perform deep academic queries, ranging from checking individual paper details to mapping global research trends across millions of scholarly records.

Make your AI actually useful.

Add this MCP to Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf and your AI stops guessing. It gets real tools to look things up, take action, and handle the stuff you keep doing by hand.

Start using OpenAlex MCP

Get Openalex Work

Retrieves all available details for a specific academic paper using its OpenAlex ID or DOI.

Search Openalex Authors

Finds researchers and returns their total works count, citation metrics, h-index...

Search Openalex Institutions

Maps research institutions globally, showing their publication counts, country code...

Search Openalex Works

Searches the entire database of 250M+ works, returning titles, authors, citation...

Get Openalex Trending Topics

Identifies and reports on the most researched scientific topics and concepts...

Security and governance baked right in.

Pick your AI client below to get set up. Just create a Vinkius account, subscribe, and you're instantly up and running. We handle the entire backend infrastructure, delivering out-of-the-box support for HTTPS Streamable, SSE, and OAuth2—zero messy routing required.

OpenAlex MCP is compatible with Claude

Claude AI

1

Open Claude Settings

Go to claude.ai, click your profile icon, then navigate to Customize → Connectors.

2

Add Custom Connector

Click the "+" button and select Add custom connector. Paste your Vinkius endpoint URL:

https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp

Replace [YOUR_TOKEN_HERE] with your token from cloud.vinkius.com. For OAuth-protected servers, expand Advanced settings to add credentials.

3

Start a conversation

Open a new chat. The OpenAlex integration is available immediately — no restart needed.

Choose How to Get Started

Build a custom MCP for your own tools, or connect a ready-made integration from our catalog.

Build Your Own

Turn any API into an MCP. Import a spec, define Agent Skills, or deploy with MCPFusion.

  • Import from OpenAPI, Swagger, or YAML specs
  • Create Agent Skills with progressive disclosure
  • Deploy to edge with MCPFusion framework
  • Built in DLP, auth, and compliance on each call
  • Real time usage dashboard and cost metering
  • Publish to catalog or keep private
Start building

Make Your AI Do More

Start with OpenAlex, then connect any of our 5,200+ other servers whenever your AI needs more. One click, no limits.

  • Use this MCP plus 5,200+ others, all in one place
  • Add new capabilities to your AI anytime you want
  • Connections are secured and governed automatically
  • Track usage and costs across all your servers
  • Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and more
  • New servers added to the catalog weekly
OpenAlex MCP server cover

Independent Platform Disclaimer: Vinkius is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, verified by, or otherwise authorized by OpenAlex. All third-party trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. Their use on this website is strictly for informational purposes to identify service compatibility and interoperability.

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Cloud Hosted

Managed infra

V8 Isolated

Sandboxed per request

Zero-Trust Proxy

No stored credentials

DLP Enforced

Policy on each call

GDPR Compliant

EU data residency

Token Compression

~60% cost reduction

Your data is protected. See how we built it.

Tracking academic impact used to feel like a scavenger hunt.

Right now, if you want to track an author's full career or compare two research institutions, you end up jumping between multiple paid platforms and databases. You copy citation counts here, paste publication lists there, then manually cross-reference institutional affiliations in a third tab. It’s slow, expensive, and exhausting.

With this MCP, your agent handles the complexity behind the scenes. Instead of manual data collection across half a dozen sites, you ask one question—like 'What are the top research areas for MIT?'—and get comprehensive bibliometric results immediately.

OpenAlex provides instant author and institution metrics.

You don't have to manually run separate searches for h-index, total citations, and current affiliation. The MCP aggregates all this information into a single profile view for both authors and organizations.

It means you stop guessing at research impact. You start working with definitive, standardized metrics sourced from the world’s largest open catalog.

What OpenAlex MCP does for your AI

This MCP lets your agent access a comprehensive, freely licensed library of over 250 million scholarly works. Instead of piecing together research insights from multiple paid services, you can ask one question and get answers derived from deep bibliometric data. You can quickly find details on any paper using its OpenAlex ID or DOI.

It also helps map out the impact of entire institutions, showing which universities or labs are leading research in specific fields globally. Want to know what topics the scientific community is focusing on right now? The system tracks global trends and lets you profile individual researchers, providing metrics like total citations and h-index scores.

When your agent processes this data through Vinkius, it brings together complex scholarly information into clear, usable insights for anyone in research or academia.

Built · Hosted · Managed by Vinkius OpenAlex MCP - Analyze scholarly research trends
Server ID 019d75e8-9734-7176-9cb2-eef1868dc866
Vinkius Inspector
Compliance Grade A+
Score 100/100
Vinkius Inspector Badge — Score 100/100

Frequently asked questions about OpenAlex MCP

How do I find papers on OpenAlex using only a DOI? +

You use the get_openalex_work tool. Simply input the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and the MCP will return all metadata for that specific academic paper.

Does OpenAlex help me see what research topics are popular? +

Yes, run the get_openalex_trending_topics tool. This function identifies the most researched scientific concepts globally by showing you how many works have been published in each area.

Can I use OpenAlex to check if a paper is open access? +

Yes, when searching for works using search_openalex_works, the tool returns the open access status (green, gold, hybrid, bronze) for immediate assessment.

What metrics does OpenAlex provide for authors? +

The search_openalex_authors tool provides a full profile including total works count, cumulative citation counts, and the important h-index metric.

Is OpenAlex better than Scopus for academic analysis? +

OpenAlex is an open-source alternative to expensive platforms. It gives you access to comparable bibliometric data—like institutional output and citation metrics—without the high subscription cost.