TheMax Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (German:Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.;MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of Germanresearch institutes. Founded in 1911 as theKaiser Wilhelm Society,[1][3] it was renamed to the Max Planck Society in 1948 in honor of its former president, theoretical physicistMax Planck. The society is funded by the federal and state governments of Germany.[2][1]
According to its primary goal, the Max Planck Society supportsfundamental research in thenatural,life andsocial sciences,the arts andhumanities in its 84 (as of January 2024)[2] institutes and research facilities.[1][3] As of 31 December 2023[update], the society has a total staff of 24,655 permanent employees, including 6,688 contractually employed scientists, 3,444 doctoral candidates, and 3,203 guest scientists.[2] 44.9% of all employees are female and 57.2% of the scientists are foreign nationals. The society's budget for 2023 was about €2.1 billion.[2]
The Max Planck Society has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization, with 39Nobel Prizes awarded to their scientists, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost basic research organizations in the world. In 2020, theNature Index placed theMax Planck Institutes third worldwide in terms of research published inNature journals (after theChinese Academy of Sciences andHarvard University).[4] In terms of total research volume (unweighted by citations or impact), the Max Planck Society is only outranked by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, theRussian Academy of Sciences and Harvard University in the Times Higher Education institutional rankings.[5] The Thomson Reuters-Science Watch website placed the Max Planck Society as the second leading research organization worldwide following Harvard University in terms of the impact of the produced research over science fields.[6]
The Max Planck Society and its predecessor Kaiser Wilhelm Society hosted several renowned scientists in their fields, includingOtto Hahn,Werner Heisenberg, andAlbert Einstein.
The Max Planck Society also hosts theCornell,Maryland, and Max Planck Pre-Doctoral Research School, an intense week of lectures, informal conversations with guest faculty and fellow students from all over the world, professional development panels with academic and industrial speakers, research poster sessions, and social events.
The organization was established in 1911 as theKaiser Wilhelm Society, orKaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (KWG), a non-governmental research organization named for the then German emperor. The KWG was one of the world's leading research organizations; its board of directors included scientists likeWalther Bothe,Peter Debye,Albert Einstein, andFritz Haber. In 1946,Otto Hahn assumed the position of president of KWG, and in 1948, the society was renamed the Max Planck Society (MPG) after its former president (1930–37)Max Planck, who died in 1947.[7]
The Max Planck Society has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization. In 2006, theTimes Higher Education Supplement rankings[8] of non-university research institutions (based on international peer review by academics) placed the Max Planck Society as No.1 in the world for science research, and No.3 in technology research (behindAT&T Corporation and theArgonne National Laboratory in the United States).
The domainmpg.de attracted at least 1.7 million visitors annually by 2008 according to aCompete.com study.[9]
From 1990 to 2004, the "Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation" was presented to several researchers from a wide range of disciplines each year.
From 2004 to 2017, the "Max Planck Research Award" was conferred annually to two internationally renowned scientists, one of whom was working in Germany and one in another country. Calls for nominations for the award were invited on an annually rotating basis in specific sub-areas of the natural sciences and engineering, the life sciences, and the human and social sciences. The objective of the Max Planck Society and theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation in presenting this joint research award was to give added momentum to specialist fields that were either not yet established in Germany or that deserved to be expanded.[10]
Since 2018, the award has been succeeded by the "Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award", annually awarded to an internationally renowned mid-career researcher with outstanding future potential from outside Germany but having a strong interest in a research residency in Germany for limited time periods, alternately in the fields of natural and engineering sciences, human sciences, and life sciences, as well as the "Max Planck-Humboldt Medal" awarded to other two finalists.[11][12][13][14]
Entrance of the administrative headquarters of the Max Planck Society inMunich
The Max Planck Society is formally aneingetragener Verein, a registered association with the institute directors as scientific members having equal voting rights.[15] The society has its registered seat inBerlin, while the administrative headquarters are located inMunich. Since June 2023, chemist and molecular biologistPatrick Cramer has been the President of the Max Planck Society.[16]
Funding is provided predominantly from federal and state sources, but also from research and license fees and donations. One of the larger donations was the castleSchloss Ringberg nearKreuth in Bavaria, which was pledged by Luitpold Emanuel in Bayern (Duke in Bavaria). It passed to the Society after the duke died in 1973, and is now used for conferences.
The Max Planck Society consists of over 80 research institutes.[17] In addition, the society funds a number of Max Planck Research Groups (MPRG) and International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS). The purpose of establishing independent research groups at various universities is to strengthen the required networking between universities and institutes of the Max Planck Society.
The research units are primarily located across Europe with a few in South Korea and the U.S. In 2007, the Society established its first non-European centre, with an institute on the Jupiter campus ofFlorida Atlantic University focusing on neuroscience.[18][19]
The Max Planck Institutes operate independently from, though in close cooperation with, the universities, and focus on innovative research that does not fit into the university structure due to itsinterdisciplinary ortransdisciplinary nature or that require resources that cannot be met by the state universities.
Internally, Max Planck Institutes are organized into research departments headed by directors such that each MPI has several directors, a position roughly comparable to anything from full professor to department head at a university. Other core members include Junior and Senior Research Fellows.[20]
In addition, there are several associated institutes:[17]
Together with the Association of Universities and other Education Institutions in Germany, the Max Planck Society established numerous International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS) to promote junior scientists:
Cologne Graduate School of Ageing Research,Cologne[22]
International Max Planck Research School on Adapting Behavior in a Fundamentally Uncertain World (Uncertainty School), at the Max Planck Institutes for Economics, for Human Development, and/or Research on Collective Goods
International Max Planck Research School for Analysis, Design and Optimization in Chemical and Biochemical Process Engineering,Magdeburg[24]
International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Cosmic Physics,Heidelberg at theMPI for Astronomy
International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics,Bonn, at theMPI for Radio Astronomy (formerly the International Max Planck Research School for Radio and Infrared Astronomy)[52]
International Max Planck Research School for the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy, Cologne[53]
Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research inRegensburg moved toMunich 1957 and was united with the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in 1977;
The Max Planck Society describes itself as "a co-founder of the international Open Access movement".[58] Together with theEuropean Cultural Heritage Online Project the Max Planck Society organized the Berlin Open Access Conference in October 2003 to ratify theBethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. At the Conference theBerlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was passed. The Berlin Declaration built on previous open access declarations, but widened the research field to be covered by open access to include humanities and called for new activities to support open access such as "encouraging the holders of cultural heritage" to provide open access to their resources.[59]
The Max Planck Society continues to supportopen access in Germany and mandates institutionalself-archiving of research outputs on the eDoc server and publications by its researchers inopen access journals within 12 months.[60] To finance open access the Max Planck Society established the Max Planck Digital Library. The library also aims to improve the conditions for open access on behalf of all Max Planck Institutes by negotiating contracts with open access publishers and developing infrastructure projects, such as the Max Planckopen access repository.[61]
In 2008, theEuropean General Court ruled in a case brought by a PhD student against the Max Planck Society that "a researcher preparing a doctoral thesis on the basis of a grant contract concluded with the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften eV, must be regarded as a worker within the meaning of Article 39 EC only if his activities are performed for a certain period of time under the direction of an institute forming part of that association and if, in return for those activities, he receives remuneration".[62]
In 2012, the Max Planck Society was at the centre of a controversy about some PhD students not being givenemployment contracts. Of the 5,300 students who at the time wrote their PhD thesis at the 80 Max Planck Institutes 2,000 had an employment contract. The remaining 3,300 received grants of between 1,000 and 1,365 Euro.[63] According to a 2011 statement by the Max Planck Society "As you embark on a PhD, you are still anything but aproper scientist; it's during the process itself that you become aproper scientist... a PhD isan apprenticeship in the lab, and as such it is usually not paid like aproper job – and this is, by and large, the practice at all research institutions and universities".[64] The allegation of wage dumping for young scientists was discussed during the passing of the 2012 "Wissenschaftsfreiheitsgesetz" (Scientific Freedom Law) in theGerman Parliament.[65]
In February 2024, the Max Planck Society faced widespread criticism for terminating the employment of Lebanese-Australian professorGhassan Hage from theMax Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, citing his social media posts on theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict as incompatible with the society's core values.[66] This decision was publicly condemned by numerous scholars and academic organizations, who argued it infringed on Hage'sfreedom of expression. German newspaperWelt am Sonntag initially reported on Hage's posts.[67][68] Following the dismissal, global academic communities, including Israeli scholars,[69] the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology,[70] theBritish Society for Middle Eastern Studies,[71] theEuropean Association of Social Anthropologists,[72] theAmerican Anthropological Association,[73] the Council for Humanities, Arts and Sciences and theAustralian Anthropological Society,[74] the Canadian Anthropology Society,[75] a Japanese group of scholars,[76] the Australian Sociological Association,[77] rallied in support of Hage, extensively citing Hage's own intellectual work, urging the society to reverse its decision. The Max Planck Society and the President Patrick Cramer have not yet respond to these letters, as of July 2024.[78][79] The Max Planck Society has made public statements expressing support for the state of Israel in theGaza war.[80][81]
Since at least 2018, there have been numerous accusations of bullying and harassment by senior researchers and directors at the Max Planck Society. In 2018, two high-profile cases of bullying were made public. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching accused directorGuinevere Kauffmann of insulting and bullying students and making racist remarks.[82][83] Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences also accused directorTania Singer of bullying and intimidation.[84] As of April 2025, both remain at the Max Planck Society.[85][86]
In 2021,Nicole Boivin, a director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (renamed the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in 2022), was removed after an internal investigation by the Max Planck Society reportedly determined that she had bullied junior researchers and plagiarized their work, along with other accusations. In December 2021 a court ruling reinstated her as a director, but in April 2022 she was removed following a vote by a governing board of the Max Planck Society.[87] However, as of April 2025, she is still employed as a Research Group Leader.[88] The same year, ecologistIan Baldwin, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, was accused of harassing doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers.[89]
In March 2025, a joint investigation betweenDeutsche Welle andDer Spiegel concluded that within the Max Planck Society, there was "a systemic failure to hold abusive staff members or their institutes accountable". Interviews with over 30 scientists, many recruited internationally, revealed that more than half experienced or witnessed misconduct by senior staff, particularly directors and group leaders. Women and people of color were identified as being at higher risk of such abuse. Many of those interviewed within the report wished to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation. Specific allegations of misconduct againstJan-Michael Rost, director of theMax Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems inDresden, were highlighted within the report.[90][91]
Alison Abbott:German science starts facing up to its historical amnesia, in: Nature Vol 403 (2000), p. 474f. (article about the Commission for the history of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft under National Socialism)
Gretchen Vogel:Aufbau Ost: Max Planck's East German Experiment, in: Science Vol. 326, 6 November 2009 (about the new institutes in the eastern part of Germany)
