OpenNIH MCP server

• Registry nameorg.opennih/opennihverified in the MCP registry

The registry name sits under opennih.org. The registry only lets a publisher use that namespace after proving control of the domain through DNS or HTTP.

• Stateanswerschecked 2026-10-17
• Tools14
• Server calls itselfOpenNIH Public Grant Analysis
• Server version0.0.12
• Protocol version2025-06-18

On 2026-10-17 the server answered initialize and tools/list without a sign-in. First answer in 177 ms.

• Whether its tools do the product's job has not been judged yet.

Said by rules from the measurements above. The likely first call is a model's pick from the tool list; read its description before relying on it.

• INITE MCP score93 of 100answers 100 · definitions 85 · context 85 · connects 100
• Answered100% of days17 of 17 daily checks
• Median first answer386 ms
• Space in an agent's context≈ 5,287 tokensthe definitions of all its tools (14), which an agent carries on every turn
• Tool definitionsB · 85 of 100
• Typed results14 of 14 toolsdeclared outputSchema: results come typed, read once

• Parameters without a description: in 13 of 14

A program checks the server once a day: initialize and tools/list, no model. Tokens are the definitions' length at about four characters a token. The grade averages six checks of every tool's name, description, schema and annotations; it says how well the tools are described, not whether they work. The score weighs what was measured and nothing else: answering (25%), doing the product's job (25%), definitions (20%), context (10%), use (10%) and how readily a client connects (10%). A part that was not measured is left out, and a hidden instruction caps the score at 40. The state of vendors' MCP servers: method and numbers →

• source_status

  Use this tool when the user asks whether the OpenNIH corpus is loaded, which official sidecars are available, or how stale the data might be — and before reporting 'no such grant', since corpus_lag_note explains that a grant added to…

• search_grants

  Use this tool when the user asks to find NIH grants — by topic, principal investigator, institution, NIH Institute/Center, activity code, fiscal year, or project number ('what NIH grants exist on CRISPR', 'show me Stanford's R01s in…

• rank_institutions

  Use this tool when the user asks which institutions get the most NIH money — 'top NIH-funded universities', 'where does NCI money go', 'rank research hospitals by R01 funding'. Each ranked row also yields its entity_id, the canonical…

• get_pi_profile

  Use this tool when the user asks about one researcher — 'how much NIH funding does Dr. X have', 'list this PI's grants', 'who does she collaborate with'. profile_id is the NIH RePORTER PI identifier carried in grant-search results'…

• get_institution_profile

  Use this tool when the user asks about one named institution — 'what is Harvard's NIH funding history', 'which PIs does this university fund', 'what mechanisms does it win'. entity_id is the canonical institution identifier (from the…

• funding_trend

  Use this tool to get yearly NIH funding totals and grant counts. Returns a time series for the whole NIH, one Institute/Center, one activity code, or one institution. Use it when the user asks 'how much NIH funding was awarded in FY2020'…

• topic_trend

  Use this tool when the user asks how a research topic has trended over time — 'is CRISPR funding growing', 'how many p53 grants per year', 'when did NIH start funding long COVID'. Returns yearly project-row counts plus recorded award…

• activity_code_distribution

  Use this tool when the user asks what KINDS of awards NIH (or one Institute) makes — 'how much goes to R01s vs training grants', 'what share of NCI's portfolio is centers', 'break NIH down by mechanism'. Returns counts and recorded totals…

• institution_concentration

  Use this tool when the user asks how concentrated or unequal NIH funding is across institutions — 'is NIH money concentrated in a few universities', 'what share do the top 5 take', 'has inequality grown since 2000'. Returns gini, hhi…

• mechanism_mix

  Use this tool when the user asks what mix of award types ONE institution wins — 'is this university mostly R01s or centers', 'how much of its NIH money is training', 'compare two schools' portfolios'. entity_id is the canonical…

• ic_topic_cross

  Use this tool when the user asks what ONE NIH Institute funds in a topic — 'what is NCI spending on immunotherapy', 'does NIMH fund psychedelics research', 'compare NIAID and NCI on vaccines' (call it once per Institute), or ic='ALL' for…

• funding_growth

  Use this tool when the user asks about the RATE of change rather than the level — 'is this university's NIH funding growing', 'what's the CAGR since 2015', 'who grew fastest'. Returns year-over-year growth plus a window CAGR for one…

• search

  Use this tool when a Deep Research or connector client needs citation-shaped NIH grant hits for a natural-language query. Returns {"results": [{id, title, text, url}]} where id is the NIH project_num and url is the public OpenNIH grant…

• fetch

  Use this tool to retrieve the full record for one NIH grant by its id. Returns {id, title, text, url, metadata} with url set to the public OpenNIH grant page so the client can cite it. This is the OpenAI Deep Research compatibility…