Official opening of the Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies

The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne (MPIfG) and the Paris University Sciences Po are consolidating their long-standing collaboration with the establishment of a joint Social Science Research Centre. "By combining the efforts of our two high-profile research institutions in MaxPo, we intend to heighten the international perception of German and French social science research,” commented Jens Beckert, Director at the MPIfG.

The opening ceremony for the Centre will take place in Paris on 29 November 2012. In addition to Max Planck President Peter Gruss, the German Ambassador to France, Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer, will also say a few words of welcome. In the following podium discussion, the two Directors at the Centre, Professor Marion Fourcade and Dr. Cornelia Woll, will join in a debate with sociologist Professor Philippe Steiner (University Paris-Sorbonne) and Professor Wolfgang Streeck (Director at the MPIfG) on the subject of “Moral categories in the financial crisis”.

Work at the Centre began on 1 October 2012. Along with a small group of internationally recruited junior researchers, the two founding directors will examine the profound transformation of the industrialized world and analyze how individuals, families, organizations, and societal subsystems are coping with increasing instability.

Funded in equal parts by the Max Planck Society and Sciences Po for the coming five years, the Center is a unique innovation in Franco-German collaboration in the social sciences and reflects the Max Planck Society's aim to put its operations on an increasingly international footing.