The Max Planck Society has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization, with 37 Nobel Prizes awarded to their scientists, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost basic research organizations in the world.

Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed the Max Planck Society in 1948 in honor of its former president, theoretical physicist Max Planck. The society is funded by the federal and state governments of German.

is max planck institute good for PhD

When it comes to training and supporting doctoral students, Max Planck institutes have a wealth of experience to call on. They cooperate closely with the universities through which the doctorates are officially awarded.

At any given time almost 4,000 young people are researching at Max Planck institutes in preparation for their dissertation; one in three are members of an International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS). Together with their partners at universities and other research institutions, the IMPRS offers a structured graduate training program with a defined curriculum. With the Max Planck Graduate Centers and in particular the Max Planck Schools as larger units, the funding concept has been further expanded in 2018.

What you need to know:

• There is no central application procedure. Doctoral positions for individual doctorates are advertised all year round.
• At the Max Planck Graduate Centers, the application phase starts in the autumn of each year (usually on 1 September).
• At the Max Planck Schools, the application phase also starts in the autumn of a year (usually 1 September) via a central applicant portal.
• Doctoral students receive a grant agreement (see below) that combines the scientific freedom of a scholarship with the security of an employment contract.
• Each year, the Max Planck Society awards the Otto Hahn Medal to approximately 35 doctoral candidates for outstanding scientific achievements.

Max Planck Institutes

The Max Planck Institute for the Advancement of Science (www.mpg.de) is an independent, non-profit research organization that primarily promotes and supports research at its own institutes. More than 12,000 staff members and 9,000 Ph.D. students, post-docs, guest scientists and researchers, and student assistants work in the 80 research institutes of the MPG. The results of the research work from Max Planck Institutes are published each year in more than 12,000 scientific articles, books, conference reports and other publications. Before being published, all of the research results are evaluated in peer reviews.

According to its primary goal, the Max Planck Society supports fundamental research in the natural, life, and social sciences, the arts, and humanities in its 86 (as of December 2018) Max Planck Institutes. The society has a total staff of approximately 17,000 permanent employees, including 5,470 scientists, plus around 4,600 non-tenured scientists and guests. The society’s budget for 2018 was about €1.8 billion. As of December 31, 2018, the Max Planck Society employed a total of 23,767 staff, of whom 15,650 were scientists. 44.4% were female employees and 31.5% of all of the employees were foreign nationals.

The Max Planck Society has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization, with 37 Nobel Prizes awarded to their scientists, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost basic research organizations in the world. In 2020, the Nature Index placed the Max Planck Institutes third worldwide in terms of research published in Nature journals (after the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Harvard University). In terms of total research volume (unweighted by citations or impact), the Max Planck Society is only outranked by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Harvard University in the Times Higher Education institutional rankings. 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.

The Max Planck Society and its predecessor Kaiser Wilhelm Society hosted several renowned scientists in their fields, including Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, and Albert Einstein.

Max Planck Institute Ranking

The Max Planck Society enjoys worldwide recognition for its excellence in research. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 20 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists. For example, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Scientific and Managing Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, and Reinhard Genzel, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, received the prestigious award in 2020 (Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physics respectively).

The Max Planck Institutes offer a vibrant, open and international working environment. Not surprisingly, the appeal of the Max Planck Society has spread worldwide. More than half of all the researchers at the Max Planck Society hold a foreign passport, forming a creative cosmos in which interdisciplinary and intercultural concepts and innovative ideas come to bear. This, in turn, ensures the success of the excellent basic research for which the Max Planck Society is renowned. 

The Max Planck Society supports outstanding young scientists and researchers, who complete formative years of their careers as student assistants, PhD students, postdocs, or research group leaders at Max Planck Institutes, and who benefit from the knowledge of their internationally networked research mentors.