Facts and Figures
Legal Form
The Max Planck Society is a non-profit organization under private law in the form of a registered association. Its highest-ranking decision-making body is the Senate. Its members come from major sectors of academic and public life. The Max Planck Society's Administrative Headquarters with the President's Office are located in Munich.
Institutes
There are 85 institutes and research facilities (as of 1st January 2026); four institutes and one research facility are situated abroad.
Personnel
As of December 31, 2025, the Max Planck Society employed approximately 26,700 people—more than 63 percent of whom worked in research. The Max Planck Society includes in this figure its directors, research group leaders, research staff, postdocs, doctoral candidates, research and student assistants, research fellows, and visiting scholars.
Non-research staff includes nearly 9,200 employees in technical and administrative roles. In addition, just under 650 dual-track students, apprentices, and interns were employed by the Max Planck Society as of December 31, 2025.
Among researchers, women accounted for 34.8 percent, while in non-research positions, the figure was 55.2 percent. The overall proportion of female employees as of the aforementioned date was approximately 45.2 percent.
Furthermore, 43 percent of directors held a non-German passport; among researchers, this proportion was significantly higher at 58.7 percent. Among doctoral candidates with funding agreements, the proportion of international students was as high as 64.3 percent. Overall, the Max Planck Society currently employs staff from 136 countries.
Finances
The Max Planck Society is mainly financed by public funds from the federal government and the federal states. In 2025, this was slightly more than 2.2 billion euros.
In addition, the Max Planck Society and its Institutes receive third-party project funding from public and private contributions and from the European Union. The federal and state governments jointly provide the subsidies for the budget of the Max Planck Society.