Max Planck Society

History

The organization was established in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, or Kaiser-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 like Walther Bothe, Peter Debye, Albert Einstein, and Fritz 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.

The Max Planck Society has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization. In 2006, the Times Higher Education Supplement rankings 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 (behind AT&T Corporation and the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States).

The domain mpg.de attracted at least 1.7 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.

List of presidents of the KWG and the MPG

1. Adolf von Harnack (1911–1930)
2. Max Planck (1930–1937)
3. Carl Bosch (1937–1940)
4. Albert Vögler (1941–1945)
5. Max Planck (16 May 1945 – 31 March 1946)
6. Otto Hahn (as President of the KWG 1946 and then as Founder and President of the MPG 1948–1960)
7. Adolf Butenandt (1960–1972)
8. Reimar Lüst (1972–1984)
9. Heinz Staab (1984–1990)
10. Hans F. Zacher (1990–1996)
11. Hubert Markl (1996–2002)
12. Peter Gruss (2002–2014)
13. Martin Stratmann (2014–2023)
14. Patrick Cramer (2023–present)

Max Planck Research Award

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 the Alexander 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.

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.

Max Planck-Humboldt Research Awards and Medals

Max Planck Research Award

Organization

The Max Planck Society is formally an eingetragener Verein, a registered association with the institute directors as scientific members having equal voting rights. The society has its registered seat in Berlin, while the administrative headquarters are located in Munich. Since June 2023, chemist and molecular biologist Patrick Cramer has been the President of the Max Planck Society.

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 castle Schloss Ringberg near Kreuth 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.

Max Planck Institutes and research groups

The Max Planck Society consists of over 80 research institutes. 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 of Florida Atlantic University focusing on neuroscience.

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 its interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary 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.

In addition, there are associated institutes:

Max Planck Society also has a collaborative center with Princeton University—Max Planck Princeton Research Center for Plasma Physics—located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the U.S. The latest Max Planck Research Center has been established at Harvard University in 2016 as the Max Planck Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean.

International Max Planck Research Schools

Together with the Association of Universities and other institutions in Germany, the Max Planck Society established numerous International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS) to promote junior scientists.

Max Planck Schools

• Max Planck School of Cognition
• Max Planck School Matter to Life
• Max Planck School of Photonics

Max Planck Center

• The Max Planck Centre for Attosecond Science (MPC-AS), POSTECH Pohang
• The Max Planck POSTECH Center for Complex Phase Materials, POSTECH Pohang

Max Planck Institutes

Among others:

• Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Italy
• Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience
• Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior – caesar, Bonn
• Max Planck Institute for Aeronomics in Katlenburg-Lindau was renamed to Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in 2004;
• Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen in Tübingen;
• Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology in Ladenburg b. Heidelberg was closed in 2003;
• Max Planck Institute for Economics in Jena was renamed to the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in 2014;
• Max Planck Institute for Ionospheric Research in Katlenburg-Lindau was renamed to Max Planck Institute for Aeronomics in 1958;
• Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Stuttgart
• Max Planck Institute of Oceanic Biology in Wilhelmshaven was renamed to Max Planck Institute of Cell Biology in 1968 and moved to Ladenburg 1977;
• Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich merged into the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in 2004;
• Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research in Regensburg moved to Munich 1957 and was united with the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in 1977;
• Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific-Technical World in Starnberg (from 1970 until 1981 (closed)) directed by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Jürgen Habermas.
• Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
• Max Planck Institute of Experimental Endocrinology
• Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social Law
• Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics
• Max Planck Research Unit for Enzymology of Protein Folding
• Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam
• Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim
• Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig

Open access publishing

The Max Planck Society describes itself as "a co-founder of the international Open Access movement". Together with the European Cultural Heritage Online Project the Max Planck Society organized the Berlin Open Access Conference in October 2003 to ratify the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. At the Conference the Berlin 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.

The Max Planck Society continues to support open access in Germany and mandates institutional self-archiving of research outputs on the eDoc server and publications by its researchers in open access journals within 12 months. 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 Planck open access repository.

Criticism

Pay for PhD students

In 2008, the European 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".

In 2012, the Max Planck Society was at the centre of a controversy about some PhD students not being given employment 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. According to a 2011 statement by the Max Planck Society "As you embark on a PhD, you are still anything but a proper scientist; it's during the process itself that you become a proper scientist... a PhD is an apprenticeship in the lab, and as such it is usually not paid like a proper job – and this is, by and large, the practice at all research institutions and universities". The allegation of wage dumping for young scientists was discussed during the passing of the 2012 "Wissenschaftsfreiheitsgesetz" (Scientific Freedom Law) in the German Parliament.

Freedom of expression

In February 2024, the Max Planck Society faced widespread criticism for terminating the employment of Lebanese-Australian professor Ghassan Hage from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, citing his social media posts on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as incompatible with the society's core values. This decision was publicly condemned by numerous scholars and academic organizations, who argued it infringed on Hage's freedom of expression. German newspaper Welt am Sonntag initially reported on Hage's posts. Following the dismissal, global academic communities, including Israeli scholars, the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology, the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, the European Association of Social Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Association, the Council for Humanities, Arts and Sciences and the Australian Anthropological Society, the Canadian Anthropology Society, a Japanese group of scholars, the Australian Sociological Association, 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. The Max Planck Society has made public statements expressing support for the state of Israel in the Gaza war. Hage filed a legal challenge contesting his dismissal. In December 2024, the Labour Court Halle rejected the dismissal claim of Ghassan Hage.

Allegations of misconduct

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 (MPA) in Garching accused director Guinevere Kauffmann of insulting and bullying students and making racist remarks. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences also accused director Tania Singer of bullying and intimidation. Singer resigned later that year, and Kauffman remains a director at MPA as of July 2026.

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. However in April 2022, she was removed following a vote by a governing board of the Max Planck Society. However, as of April 2025, she is still employed as a Research Group Leader. The same year, ecologist Ian Baldwin, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, was accused of harassing doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers.

In March 2025, a joint investigation between Deutsche Welle and Der Spiegel claimed there was "a systemic failure to hold abusive staff members or their institutes accountable" within the institutes they investigated. Interviews with around 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 against Jan-Michael Rost, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, were highlighted within the report.

Nobel Laureates

Kaiser Wilhelm Society (1914–1948)

1. Max von Laue, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914
2. Richard Willstätter, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1915
3. Fritz Haber, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918
4. Max Planck, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
5. Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921
6. Otto Meyerhof, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922
7. James Franck, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925
8. Carl Bosch, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931
9. Otto Heinrich Warburg, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931
10. Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932
11. Hans Spemann, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1935
12. Peter J. W. Debye, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1936
13. Richard Kuhn, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938
14. Adolf Butenandt, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1939
15. Otto Hahn, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944

Max Planck Society (since 1948)

1. Walter Bothe, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954
2. Karl Ziegler, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963
3. Feodor Lynen, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964
4. Manfred Eigen, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967
5. Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973
6. Georges Köhler, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984
7. Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1985
8. Ernst Ruska, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986
9. Johann Deisenhofer, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988
10. Hartmut Michel, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988
11. Robert Huber, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988
12. Bert Sakmann, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1991
13. Erwin Neher, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1991
14. Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995
15. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995
16. Theodor W. Hänsch, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005
17. Gerhard Ertl, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2007
18. Stefan W. Hell, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014
19. Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020
20. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020
21. Klaus Hasselmann, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021
22. Benjamin List, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2021
23. Svante Pääbo, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022
24. Ferenc Krausz, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023
25. Peter Hegemann, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2026
26. Georg Nagel, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2026