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The Max Planck So­ci­ety

Main entrance of the Max Planck Society in Munich.
Main entrance of the Max Planck Society in Munich (© Kai Weinsziehr für MPG)

The Max Planck So­ci­ety (Ger­man: Max-Planck-Gesell­schaft; ab­bre­vi­ated MPG) con­ducts ba­sic re­search in the nat­ural sci­ences, life sci­ences, and hu­man­it­ies. It is a form­ally in­de­pend­ent non-gov­ern­mental and non-profit as­so­ci­ation of Ger­man re­search in­sti­tutes. The Max Planck So­ci­ety with its 84 Max Planck In­sti­tutes and fa­cil­it­ies is the in­ter­na­tional flag­ship for Ger­man sci­ence: in ad­di­tion to five for­eign in­sti­tu­tions, it op­er­ates an­other 17 Max Planck Cen­ters with in­ter­na­tional part­ners.

 

"In­sight must pre­cede ap­plic­a­tion."

Max Planck

 

The Max Planck So­ci­ety is Ger­many's most suc­cess­ful re­search or­gan­iz­a­tion. Since its es­tab­lish­ment in 1948, no fewer than 18 No­bel laur­eates have emerged from the ranks of its sci­ent­ists, put­ting it on a par with the best and most pres­ti­gi­ous re­search in­sti­tu­tions world­wide. The more than 15,000 pub­lic­a­tions each year in in­ter­na­tion­ally renowned sci­entific journ­als are proof of the out­stand­ing re­search work con­duc­ted at Max Planck In­sti­tutes – and many of those art­icles are among the most-cited pub­lic­a­tions in the rel­ev­ant field.

 

Entrance hall of the Max Planck Society (© Axel Griesch für MPG)
Entrance hall of the Max Planck Society (© Axel Griesch für MPG)
Inner courtyard of the Max Planck Society (© Manfred Bonfig für MPG)
Inner courtyard of the Max Planck Society (© Manfred Bonfig für MPG)
Stair well of the Max Planck Society (© Wolfgang Filser für MPG)
Stair well of the Max Planck Society (© Wolfgang Filser für MPG)

What is the basis of this suc­cess? The sci­entific at­tract­ive­ness of the Max Planck So­ci­ety is based on its un­der­stand­ing of re­search: Max Planck In­sti­tutes are built up solely around the world's lead­ing re­search­ers. They them­selves define their re­search sub­jects and are given the best work­ing con­di­tions, as well as free reign in se­lect­ing their staff. This is the core of the Har­nack prin­ciple, which dates back to Ad­olph von Har­nack, the first pres­id­ent of the Kaiser Wil­helm So­ci­ety, which was es­tab­lished in 1911. This prin­ciple has been suc­cess­fully ap­plied for nearly one hun­dred years. The Max Planck So­ci­ety con­tin­ues the tra­di­tion of its pre­de­cessor in­sti­tu­tion with this struc­tural prin­ciple of the per­son-centered re­search or­gan­iz­a­tion.

The cur­rently 84 Max Planck In­sti­tutes and fa­cil­it­ies con­duct ba­sic re­search in the ser­vice of the gen­eral pub­lic in the nat­ural sci­ences, life sci­ences, so­cial sci­ences, and the hu­man­it­ies. Max Planck In­sti­tutes fo­cus on re­search fields that are par­tic­u­larly in­nov­at­ive, or that are es­pe­cially de­mand­ing in terms of fund­ing or time re­quire­ments. And their re­search spec­trum is con­tinu­ally evolving: new in­sti­tutes are es­tab­lished to find an­swers to sem­inal, for­ward-look­ing sci­entific ques­tions, while oth­ers are closed when, for ex­ample, their re­search field has been widely es­tab­lished at uni­versit­ies. This con­tinu­ous re­newal pre­serves the scope the Max Planck So­ci­ety needs to re­act quickly to pi­on­eer­ing sci­entific de­vel­op­ments.

You'll find fur­ther in­form­a­tion on the MPG website.

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