ORCID
Search ORCID researcher profiles, retrieve works, and export citations
Runs on your machine from its package; the steps are below.
What it does
- Reads
- Writes
- High impact
At most: only reads or looks up information.
What it costs
FreeOdel charges nothing per call. The publisher may charge for its own service.
Runs locally over stdio
This server isn't hosted — your MCP client launches it from a package registry. Use one of the commands below, or drop the config into your client (e.g. Claude Desktop).
Run
uvx orcid-mcp-server
MCP client config
{
"mcpServers": {
"orcid": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"orcid-mcp-server"
]
}
}
}ORCID MCP Server
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides tools for searching the ORCID registry, reading researcher profiles, retrieving publications, and exporting citations in RIS and BibTeX formats.
Built with FastMCP and the ORCID Public API v3.0.
Tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
orcid_search | Search for researchers by name, affiliation, keyword, DOI, or advanced Solr query |
orcid_read_record | Read a researcher's full profile (bio, employment, education, keywords) |
orcid_read_works | Get publications from a researcher's ORCID record |
orcid_export_ris | Export retrieved works as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.) |
orcid_export_bibtex | Export retrieved works as BibTeX |
Setup
1. Get ORCID API credentials
Register for free public API credentials at ORCID Developer Tools.
2. Install
cd orcid-mcp-server
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Configure environment
Copy the example env file and add your credentials:
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your ORCID_CLIENT_ID and ORCID_CLIENT_SECRET
4. Add to Claude Desktop
Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"orcid-mcp": {
"command": "/path/to/orcid-mcp-server/venv/bin/python",
"args": ["/path/to/orcid-mcp-server/server.py"],
"env": {
"ORCID_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
"ORCID_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret"
}
}
}
}
Or if using Claude Code CLI:
claude mcp add orcid-mcp \
/path/to/orcid-mcp-server/venv/bin/python \
/path/to/orcid-mcp-server/server.py \
-e ORCID_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
-e ORCID_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret
Usage examples
Once connected, you can ask Claude things like:
- "Search ORCID for researchers at Northwestern University working on machine learning"
- "Look up the ORCID profile for 0000-0002-1825-0097"
- "Get the publications for this researcher and export them as RIS for Zotero"
License
MIT
