MCP server category
Scientific research MCP servers: comparison and full list
The Scientific research category lists 35 open-source MCP servers, checked on GitHub. The best scored on our grid are Zotero MCP (54yyyu), ToolUniverse, and Idea reality MCP. 86% received a commit in the last three months.
What Scientific research MCP servers are for
Scientific research MCP servers give an AI agent access to libraries, scientific tools and research resources. They support researchers, students and teams preparing literature reviews or organizing research work. Depending on the server, you can find references, read documents or structure stages of a project. Zotero MCP describes searching, reading and annotating a Zotero library. Research toolkit provides local tools for managing research workflow and saved progress. A practical request might be: “Find the available references on this topic and prepare a synthesis linked to the sources you consulted.” The resulting work still requires source checking and an explicit research method.
Example uses:
- Find references in your Zotero library while preparing a review of relevant literature.
- Add annotations to research documents made accessible through the Zotero MCP integration.
- Organize research stages and preserve work progress using the local Research toolkit tools.
- Explore the scientific tools available through ToolUniverse for tasks relevant to your study.
The category in figures
Of the 35 servers in the category (1% of the directory), 2 are official vendor implementations, 97% declare a licence, 10 offer a remote server and 13 need at least one API key or token according to the MCP registry. The median repository has 19 stars.
All Scientific research MCP servers
Click a header to sort. Score out of 100: adoption, maintenance and framework (licence, registry, official status); risk: system access, secrets, licence, abandonment.
| Server | Stars | Last commit | Licence | Risk | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zotero MCP (54yyyu) Search, read, annotate, and add to your Zotero research library, local or web. | 5,549 | Oct 16, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 82 |
| ToolUniverse 2,700+ scientific tools for AI scientists: life science, research, literature, and more. | 1,757 | Oct 24, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | moderate | 77 |
| Idea reality MCP Check for existing competition before building: scan GitHub, Hacker News, npm, PyPI and Product Hunt for similar projects, duplicate likelih | 828 | Sep 18, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 74 |
| Research toolkit Eight local research workflow tools for task setup, saved progress, stage guidance, configurable report review, and delivery checks. | 299 | Oct 22, 2026 | MIT | low | 70 |
| TinySearch Fast discovery search and self-hosted web research for MCP agents. | 233 | Oct 19, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 69 |
| Deep research MCP Deep research via the OpenAI Responses API or Open Deep Research (smolagents), with web search and code interpreter support. | 115 | Oct 21, 2026 | MIT | low | 66 |
| Paper preflight Checks every reference of a LaTeX paper against Crossref, dblp, arXiv, DataCite, PubMed and OpenAlex records: whether each cited work exists | 100 | Oct 15, 2026 | MIT | low | 70 |
| OmniSeek Self-hosted perception server: local bilingual ASR, vision, cross-lingual search, credentialed login-walled sources and a persistent relatio | 95 | Oct 20, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | low | 70 |
| Academia MCP Search arXiv and ACL Anthology, retrieve citations and references, and browse web sources to accel… | 94 | Jan 25, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | low | 51 |
| Patsnap Patent & Literature Search Natural-language patent and scientific literature search via Patsnap: semantic and BM25 search, structured filters and record retrieval. | 84 | Aug 6, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | low | 64 |
| Research hub Research workspace for Zotero, Obsidian and NotebookLM: search arXiv, Semantic Scholar, PubMed and Crossref, ingest into Zotero, sync notes | 66 | Oct 24, 2026 | MIT | low | 68 |
| Overleaf MCP server MCP server for managing Overleaf projects through Git synchronization. | 64 | Oct 11, 2026 | MIT | low | 63 |
| Zoteus Zotero integration: hybrid search, PDF passages with page locators, CSL bibliographies, add by DOI, group libraries and writes including PDF | 62 | Oct 19, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 68 |
| Astro MCP MCP server to support Astro project development | 61 | May 1, 2026 | MIT | low | 51 |
| Source Library Search and cite rare historical texts (alchemy, Hermeticism, Renaissance philosophy) from Source Library with DOI-backed citations. | 23 | Oct 24, 2026 | AGPL-3.0 | low | 64 |
| Semantic Scholar MCP Server Semantic Scholar academic papers: search, paper and author retrieval, citation-graph traversal and recommendations. | 23 | Oct 23, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 64 |
| LastSearch Verified web research for AI agents (formerly BrowseAI Dev). Real-time search with cited claims, confidence scores, live citation-health che | 20 | Oct 18, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | moderate | 63 |
| Viznoir Scientific visualization for CFD, FEA and SPH: render, slice, contour, volume-render and animate OpenFOAM, VTK and CGNS data headlessly. | 19 | Oct 23, 2026 | MIT | low | 63 |
| YADE MCP Server YADE discrete element method (DEM) simulation: search API docs, run code via a REPL or background tasks, monitor progress and review task hi | 15 | Oct 22, 2026 | MIT | low | 62 |
| Gramps Web MCP Gramps Web genealogy: search and edit family tree records, explore ancestors, descendants, relationships and timelines, and read media with | 14 | Oct 24, 2026 | AGPL-3.0 | moderate | 61 |
| HasData Google Scholar Google Scholar search as JSON with author and year filters, cited-by and all-versions lookups, and formatted citations with BibTeX export. | 13 | Oct 12, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 67 |
| Scholar Feed Semantic search over CS and AI papers with citation-graph traversal, full-text extraction, embeddings and BibTeX export. | 13 | Oct 20, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 61 |
| Tripitaka MCP Search, cite and compare the Pāli Canon (Tipiṭaka): hybrid search, full suttas with cross-references, aligned translations and Pāli dictiona | 12 | Oct 24, 2026 | — | moderate | 51 |
| Legiscan MCP Legislative data from all 50 US states and Congress via the LegiScan API: search bills, get full text, track votes and look up legislators. | 12 | Sep 24, 2026 | MIT | low | 51 |
| Scholar Sidekick Resolve scholarly identifiers (DOI, PMID, ISBN, arXiv and more) to CSL JSON, format citations in thousands of styles, or export to BibTeX, R | 11 | Oct 15, 2026 | MIT | low | 60 |
| Zotero Native MCP Read and write a local Zotero library via its local API, offline: collections, items, attachments, full text, BibTeX and CSL export, tags an | 10 | Oct 20, 2026 | MIT | low | 60 |
| Touch browser Evidence-grounded web research: verify claims on pages with citations, confidence bands and policy reports, and synthesize multi-page sessio | 10 | Jun 15, 2026 | MPL-2.0 | low | 43 |
| Agenda Intelligence MD Auditable strategic-risk memos (sanctions, regulation, geopolitics, trade) with Central Asia and Gulf regional specialists and per-claim evi | 8 | Oct 24, 2026 | MIT | low | 59 |
| Paperboy Send research papers to Kindle or Kobo: search arXiv and OpenAlex, find related work, queue papers in Zotero and deliver PDFs via email or D | 7 | Jul 13, 2026 | MIT | low | 41 |
| Patents MCP Patent search and prior art discovery using the Google Patents public dataset on BigQuery: patent details with CPC codes and citations, and | 6 | Jun 19, 2026 | MIT | low | 46 |
| HasData Google Trends Google Trends data as JSON: interest over time and by region, plus rising and top related queries and topics for any keyword. | 5 | Oct 14, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 63 |
| Scholar MCP Federated academic search across OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, PubMed and more, with citation graphs, full-text reading, PDFs and a loc | 5 | Oct 8, 2026 | Apache-2.0 | moderate | 57 |
| PH Civic Data Philippine government data: PHIVOLCS earthquakes and volcano alerts, PAGASA weather and typhoons, PhilGEPS procurement, PSA census data and | 5 | Oct 15, 2026 | MIT | moderate | 57 |
| Orbit Sentinel — Space Regulatory Filings ◆ Search FCC, ITU, UNOOSA and FAA space regulatory filings via Orbit Sentinel: semantic search, entity dossiers, spectrum holdings, launch lic | 1 | Oct 17, 2026 | MIT | low | 60 |
| Abliteration MCP ◆ 18 read-only tools over the abliteration.org catalog: every abliterated and uncensored LLM on Hugging Face, their method classification, dow | 0 | Oct 17, 2026 | MIT | low | 55 |
Official servers
Published by the service's own vendor (per the awesome-mcp-servers list): they usually track the API closely and are better maintained.
Choosing and securing
Choose according to disciplinary coverage, accessible sources and documented operations. Check reference traceability and whether you can retrieve original documents. Review maintenance, licensing, dependencies and external service terms. Compare local and remote execution, particularly when working with unpublished material. Look for documentation that distinguishes tool outputs from interpretation and explains known limitations clearly enough to assess the workflow for your research.
Research libraries and files may contain unpublished findings, personal information or restricted documents. Check what can be sent to a model or remote service before granting access. Protect API keys and institutional credentials. Retrieved papers and pages can contain malicious instructions aimed at the agent. Verify references, quoted passages and calculations before including them in scientific work or sharing them with others.
Before connecting a server to an agent with access to your data, run the AI agent security check.
Most recent
- Abliteration MCP created October 15, 2026
- Paper preflight created October 3, 2026
- HasData Google Scholar created September 10, 2026
- Zotero Native MCP created September 3, 2026
- HasData Google Trends created August 24, 2026
Other categories
Learn more
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Scientific research MCP server?
On our grid (adoption, maintenance, framework), Zotero MCP (54yyyu) (82/100), ToolUniverse (77/100), and Idea reality MCP (74/100) come first. The right choice mostly depends on the service you need and the rights you are willing to grant.
Are these servers free?
97% declare an open-source licence and are free to use. 13 need an API key: the connected service may be paid.
Can an agent's synthesis serve as a literature review?
It can provide a starting point when sources are identifiable and the method is explicit. Check the cited documents, search coverage and any exclusions. A conversational synthesis alone does not establish that all relevant literature has been considered or that the selection meets the requirements of your research.
Can I connect a library containing unpublished work?
That depends on your confidentiality requirements and the path the data takes. A local server may read documents without ensuring their contents remain on your machine. Review the client, model and external services involved before providing access to unpublished findings or material governed by research agreements.
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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score