The Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (abbreviated MPG, meaning Max Planck society for the advancement of science) is a network of elite scientific research institutes in Germany. The MPG is named after Max Planck, the famous German physicist who initiated quantum mechanics. It is the successor of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (Emperor William Society) which took the role the MPG has now in pre-war Germany. The society's logo features Minerva, the Romangoddess of wisdom.
Today, the MPG comprises of 78 institutes, all called "Max Planck Institute (MPI) für (for) ..." which are distributed all over Germany (and in serveral other countries) and cover many fields of fundamental scientific research. The institutes have a total staff of approx. 12,200 permanent employees plus around 9000 scientists working there only temporarily.
The society is organised as an eingetragener Verein (a private non-profit organisation), but is chiefly run from public money (50% from the national government's research ministry, 50% from the state governments). Its budget for 2004 was about 1,250 million euro, with 95% supplied by state and especially federal governments of Germany and 5% by donations and earnings.
Max Planck Institutes often cooperate closely with the universities nearby, but are independent of them (and, as stated above, funded partially by the national government, while universities are run exclusively by the states). This allows their staff to concentrate on research, without teaching obligations. The Max Planck Institutes carry out research in fields where universities do not have the financial or organisational resources to carry out, often because the research is multi-disciplinary.
Apart from the institutes, there are the International Max Planck Research Schools, Independent Junior Research Groups and other facilities.
