Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society is a German non-profit research organization that runs institutes for basic research in the natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences and humanities. Founded on 26 February 1948 as the successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it has its administrative headquarters in Munich and operated 85 institutes and research facilities as of 1 January 2026.

History of the Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society continues a tradition that began with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, which was established in 1911 with Adolf von Harnack as its first president. Harnack’s principle, still followed today, is that institutes are built around outstanding researchers, who choose their own topics and staff.

After the Second World War, the physicist Max Planck worked to preserve the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. Because of his international reputation, the structure was allowed to remain. The Max Planck Society was founded on 26 February 1948 in Göttingen, in a building that had belonged to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society’s aerodynamic testing facility. An earlier Max Planck Society, valid only in the British zone, had been dissolved two days before to make way for the new one. The chemist and Nobel Prize winner Otto Hahn became its first president.

The Society’s own accounts give two figures for the starting point. One says it began in 1948 with 25 institutes and research centers, and another says that 29 institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were taken into the new body, with five more from the former French zone joining after the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in autumn 1949.

The number of institutes grew to 52 by 1966, as research in the natural sciences expanded to include astronomy and solid state physics and researchers in the humanities and social sciences set up institutes for subjects such as law and education. After German reunification, the Society established 18 new institutes in eastern Germany through 1998. Since the start of the 21st century it has strengthened its activity abroad.

Structure and membership

The Max Planck Society is a registered association, a non-profit organization under private law. Its highest decision-making body is the Senate, whose members come from major sectors of academic and public life. Each year the Senate adopts the annual report, which is then presented to the General Assembly of Members for approval. The President and the administrative headquarters are in Munich, and the legal registration is in Berlin.

As of 1 January 2026 there were 85 institutes and research facilities, with four institutes and one research facility located abroad. Institutes focus on research fields that are particularly innovative or that demand unusual funding or time. New institutes open to answer forward-looking questions, and others close when a field has become established at universities.

As of 31 December 2025 the Society employed approximately 26,700 people, of whom more than 63 percent worked in research. Nearly 9,200 held technical and administrative roles, and just under 650 dual-track students, apprentices and interns were also employed. Staff came from 136 countries, and 43 percent of directors held a non-German passport. Women made up 34.8 percent of researchers.

What the Max Planck Society does

The Society conducts basic research, meaning work aimed at understanding rather than at a specific product. Its website carries a line attributed to Max Planck: “Insight must precede application.” The German Federal Ministry of Research describes the Society as operating its own institutes for basic research in the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences.

The Society says its institutes produce more than 15,000 publications a year in internationally respected journals, and that 31 Nobel laureates are among its scientists. It trains young researchers through the International Max Planck Research Schools, which have almost 3,000 doctoral students, about half of them from abroad.

It also supports teachers with periodicals that present current research in a form usable in science classes. The Ministry says the Society places emphasis on new, innovative research fields and that its results are meant to serve the general public. It describes the Society’s work as a complement to research done at universities and other research establishments.

Funding and governance of the Max Planck Society

The Society is mainly financed by public money from the federal government and the federal states. In 2025 this was slightly more than 2.2 billion euros. The Society and its institutes also receive third-party project funding from public and private contributors and from the European Union.

The federal and state governments provide the subsidy together, and the Federal Ministry puts the split between federal government and states at 50 to 50. Other major German research organizations are funded on different terms: the Helmholtz Association and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft are split 90 to 10, and the Leibniz Association 50 to 50.

Governance rests on the Senate, the General Assembly of Members and the President. The Senate adopts the annual report each year, in line with the statutes, and it is then presented to the General Assembly and approved there.

Legacy and impact of the Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society calls itself Germany’s most successful research organization, a self-description the Society links to its Nobel record and publication output. Its character comes from the Harnack principle of a person-centered research organization, a structure the Society says it has applied for nearly a hundred years.

The history of the Göttingen site shows how closely research and the state have been linked. The aerodynamic facility there had grown into a major research center with heavy financial support from the Nazi government from 1933, and its work yielded discoveries of great military value. After 1945 it was largely dismantled, which freed space for the new Society.

Today the Society sits alongside the Helmholtz Association, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Leibniz Association as one of the four large non-university research organizations that the federal and state governments jointly fund in Germany.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue