Semantic Scholar

About Semantic Scholar

Your AI-Powered Gateway to Scientific Knowledge

Semantic Scholar is a free research platform built by the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) that uses artificial intelligence to help users discover and understand scientific literature more efficiently. With access to over 225 million research papers across all scientific domains, Semantic Scholar empowers students, researchers, and developers to explore scholarly content in smarter and faster ways.

Designed for Science, Built for Speed

Unlike traditional academic search engines, Semantic Scholar is designed to reduce information overload. It filters out irrelevant papers, highlights influential work, and surfaces key findings so you can focus on the most important research.

How Semantic Scholar Works

Smart Paper Search

The core of Semantic Scholar is its intelligent search engine that understands context, not just keywords. When you search a topic, author, or DOI, the system ranks results based on relevance, citation impact, and semantic similarity.

Semantic Reader

The Semantic Reader (currently in beta) augments research papers by highlighting key contributions, definitions, and referenced concepts directly in the text. This helps you grasp the core ideas of a study without switching tabs or tools.

Paper Summarization and Citations

Semantic Scholar extracts and displays citation contexts—how a paper has been cited by others—letting you instantly see if the citation supports, refutes, or builds upon the work. You can also read short summaries that distill complex research into digestible insights.

Tools and Features for Researchers

Scholar’s Hub

Create a free account to save papers, build reading lists, and track influential research in your field. Scholar’s Hub is your personal research assistant.

API Access for Developers

Developers can integrate Semantic Scholar into their applications with a robust, stable API that supports paper search, metadata extraction, and citation analysis. The enhanced API includes improved documentation and faster responses.

Cross-Disciplinary Research Support

Semantic Scholar spans disciplines from life sciences and medicine to computer science, psychology, and the humanities. Whether you're studying climate change, neural networks, or public health, this platform provides structured access to peer-reviewed and preprint literature.

Organize, Discover, and Learn

Literature Mapping and Discovery

By using AI to find connections between papers, authors, and concepts, Semantic Scholar helps you discover related research and hidden insights that would be missed in traditional search tools.

Citation Graphs and Influence Metrics

Visualize how research influences your field. Citation graphs show the relationships between papers and help you understand which studies are most influential.

Accessible and Free

Semantic Scholar is completely free to use. It aims to democratize access to scientific knowledge by making academic research more discoverable, understandable, and actionable.

Who Uses Semantic Scholar?

For Students and Educators

Find reliable sources quickly, understand papers with simplified highlights, and organize references for assignments and theses.

For Researchers

Stay updated with new developments, track citations, and explore literature more deeply using AI-enhanced reading tools.

For Developers and Innovators

Use the Semantic Scholar API to build academic search features into your apps or perform large-scale research analytics.