ERIC Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for searching ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) — the world's largest education research database with 2M+ records dating back to 1966.

Built with FastMCP. No API key required — ERIC is free and open.

Tools

Tool	Description
eric_search	Search by keyword, title, author, subject descriptor, or source with filtering
eric_get_record	Retrieve full metadata for a specific ERIC record by ID
eric_thesaurus_search	Discover ERIC descriptors (controlled vocabulary) for a topic
eric_author_search	Search for works by a specific author
eric_export_ris	Export results as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.)
eric_export_bibtex	Export results as BibTeX

Why ERIC?

Approximately 40% of ERIC's collection is grey literature (reports, white papers, policy studies) not found in other databases. Many items include free full-text PDFs directly from ERIC.

Setup

1. Install

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

2. Add to Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "eric": {
      "command": "/path/to/eric-mcp-server/venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/path/to/eric-mcp-server/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Or if using Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add eric \
  /path/to/eric-mcp-server/venv/bin/python \
  /path/to/eric-mcp-server/server.py

Usage examples

• "Search ERIC for recent peer-reviewed research on flipped classrooms in higher education"
• "What ERIC descriptors are used for research on student curiosity?"
• "Find grey literature reports on K-12 STEM education from 2020-2024"
• "Get the full record for ED612345 and export it as RIS for Zotero"

License

MIT