Unpaywall MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for the Unpaywall API — open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles.

Built with FastMCP.

Tools

Tool	Description
`unpaywall_lookup`	Look up open-access availability by DOI — returns OA status, PDF/landing page URLs, license, all OA locations
`unpaywall_search`	Search 120M+ article titles with OA filtering and pagination
`unpaywall_export_ris`	Export results as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.)
`unpaywall_export_bibtex`	Export results as BibTeX

What you get

Open-access status and OA type (gold, green, hybrid, bronze)
Best OA location with direct PDF link
All OA locations across repositories and publishers
Journal OA status, ISSN, publisher info
Author lists, publication dates, DOIs
License information per location

Setup

1. Get your email ready

Unpaywall requires an email address as your API identifier (no API key needed). See the Unpaywall API docs.

2. Install

Terminal

pip install unpaywall-mcp-server

Or install from source:

bash

cd unpaywall-mcp-server
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Add to Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unpaywall": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["unpaywall-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "UNPAYWALL_EMAIL": "your-email@example.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or if using Claude Code CLI:

Terminal

claude mcp add unpaywall \
  uvx unpaywall-mcp-server \
  -e UNPAYWALL_EMAIL=your-email@example.com

Usage examples

"Is there an open-access version of DOI 10.1038/nature12373?"
"Search Unpaywall for open-access papers on CRISPR gene editing"
"Export these results as RIS for Zotero"
"Find OA articles about climate change mitigation"

License

MIT