Max Planck Institutes Research Articles

On the history of neuroscience research in the Max Planck Society, 1948–2002—German, European, and transatlantic perspectives: Introduction

ABSTRACT To further our understanding of the transformations of the modern, globalized world, historical research concerning the twentieth century must acknowledge the tremendous impact that science and technology exerted and continue to exert on political, economic, military, and social developments. To better comprehend a global history of science, it is also crucial to include Germany’s most prominent research organization: The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG). Despite the existence of numerous institute chronicles and selected anniversary editions, the overall development of the MPG—historically situated in more than 80 institutes with more than 250 research service departments (of which approximately 50 have reached into the wider field of neuroscience, behavioral science, and cognitive science)—it remains largely terra incognita from a scholarly perspective. From June 2014 to December 2022, the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society (GMPG) opened previously neglected vistas on contemporary history, academic politics, and economic developments of the Federal Republic of Germany and its international relations by raising questions such as these: Who were the key scientific actors? In what networks did they work? In what fields had the MPG paved the way for cutting-edge innovations? What were its successes and where did it fail? In what ways were its institutional structures connected to its scientific achievements and its historical legacies? What is specific about the MPG in comparison to other national institutions in and outside of Germany? These questions relate to the emerging interdisciplinary field of the neurosciences. They refer in part to the MPG’s founding years—from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s—which faced significant challenges for a “normalization process” in biomedical research and the burgeoning field of neuroscience. This special issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences is composed of an introduction, five articles, and two neuroscience history interviews. It reflects on the multifold dimensions of behavioral psychology, brain research, and cognitive science developments at the MPG since its beginning through the reopening of several former Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. After World War II, the extra-university research society—named in honor of physicist Max Planck (1858–1947)—was eventually established in the British Occupation Zone in 1946, in the American Zone in 1948, and in 1949 in the French Zone, unifying the MPG as the successor umbrella organization of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWIs), now transformed into Max Planck Institutes. Chronologically, the research period covered in this special issue ranges from 1948 to 2002.

Neuroscience research in the Max Planck Society and a broken relationship to the past: Some legacies of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society after 1948

ABSTRACT The development of the brain sciences (Hirnforschung) in the Max Planck Society (MPG) during the early decades of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was influenced by the legacy of its precursor institution, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science (KWG). The KWG’s brain science institutes, along with their intramural psychiatry and neurology research programs, were of considerable interest to the Western Allies and former administrators of the German science and education systems in their plans to rebuild the extra-university research society—first in the British Occupation Zone and later in the American and French Occupation Zones. This formation process occurred under the physicist Max Planck (1858–1947) as acting president, and the MPG was named in his honor when it was formally established in 1948. In comparison to other international developments in the brain sciences, it was neuropathology as well as neurohistology that initially dominated postwar brain research activities in West Germany. In regard to its KWG past, at least four historical factors can be identified that explain the dislocated structural and social features of the MPG during the postwar period: first, the disruption of previously existing interactions between German brain scientists and international colleagues; second, the German educational structures that countered interdisciplinary developments through their structural focus on medical research disciplines during the postwar period; third, the moral misconduct of earlier KWG scientists and scholars during the National Socialism period; and, fourth, the deep rupture that appeared through the forced migration of many Jewish and oppositional neuroscientists who sought to find exile after 1933 in countries where they had already held active collaborations since the 1910s and 1920s. This article examines several trends in the MPG’s disrupted relational processes as it sought to grapple with its broken past, beginning with the period of reinauguration of relevant Max Planck Institutes in brain science and culminating with the establishment of the Presidential Research Program on the History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism in 1997.

Cell scientist to watch – Christian Münch

ABSTRACT Christian Münch studied biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institutes in Martinsried and Tübingen, Germany. For his PhD, he joined the group of Anne Bertolotti at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, to work on protein aggregation and prion-like processes in neurodegenerative diseases. Then, he moved to Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, to carry out postdoctoral work in Wade Harper's lab, where he studied cellular protein quality control and the mitochondrial unfolded protein response. Christian established his independent research group in 2016 at the Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University Frankfurt, funded by an European Research Council (ERC) starting grant and Emmy Noether grant. His lab studies cellular stress responses to mitochondrial protein misfolding, infection and disease, as well as developing proteomics methods.

The problematic legacy of victim specimens from the Nazi era: Identifying the persons behind the specimens at the Max Planck Institutes for Brain Research and of Psychiatry

ABSTRACT Although 75 years have passed since the end of World War II, the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck Gesellschaft, MPG), successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, KWG), still must grapple with how two of its foremost institutes—the KWI of Psychiatry in Munich and the KWI for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch—amassed collections of brains from victims of Nazi crimes, and how these human remains were retained for postwar research. Initial efforts to deal with victim specimens during the 1980s met with denial and, subsequently, rapid disposal in 1989/1990. Despite the decision of the MPG’s president to retain documentation for historical purposes, there are gaps in the available sources. This article provides preliminary results of a research program initiated in 2017 (to be completed by October 2023) to provide victim identifications and the circumstances of deaths.

Industrial Policy in Ireland: Responding to Covid-19 and Brexit

Industrial Policy in Ireland: Responding to Covid-19 and Brexit William Kingston It is clearly inevitable that the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, the events which have so dominated in 2020, will transform Irish economic conditions in a fundamental way. The pandemic on its own is surely undermining globalisation in the form which successive Irish governments have enthusiastically embraced it. A key aspect of this has been the ability of global firms to avoid paying tax through use of international arrangements for what is called intellectual property – trademarks, patents, designs etc. By having these owned in one low-tax country, and licensed to subsidiary firms in others, the licence terms can be arranged so as to absorb almost all the profits made in these other countries and transfer them to where little or no tax has to be paid. The primary function of the laws of intellectual property, and the reason they were brought into being, was to make it possible to undertake the high risks of investing in technological innovations. As part of a process whereby law-making for property rights came under the control of those whom these rights could benefit, the primary function of intellectual property has been changed. It is now more important for facilitating money transfer around the world for tax evasion and avoidance than it is for technological innovation.1 Ireland and globalisation Ireland has been a key player in this change, although it did not invent it, just as it had not invented the incentives that brought so much foreign investment into the country. These were grants for plant, buildings and training, originally introduced by the Fine Gael/Labour government of 1947 to try to get firms to locate west of the Shannon. Almost all those set up under Fianna Fáil’s 1934 Control of Manufactures Act had been within the Pale. It was not until Liebherr, the Austrian firm which had innovated tower cranes for building, took advantage of these incentives to set up in Killarney, that their potential for getting foreign firms to establish here was shown and Studies • volume 110 • number 437 84 grasped. When they were reinforced by a low tax rate for manufacturing industry, they were highly successful. Similarly, the origin of the tax-efficient use by foreign firms of Ireland’s membership of the Paris Convention of 1883, which covers patents and trademarks, was not the result of deliberate policy. The initiator was Don Panoz, an American who set up the Elan pharmaceutical firm in Athlone. At that time, Ireland allowed freedom of tax on royalties for patents, and Belgium did not examine patent applications for novelty. Panoz used this combination to avoid paying tax on profits from enterprises which had nothing at all to do with invention. He was followed by many local firms, some of whose tax evasion was so blatant that the patent tax exemption had to be ended. However, this did not affect the multinational firms, which continued to develop their use of the country’s position within the Paris Convention to minimise their tax liabilities. Ireland’s ability to attract foreign investment meant that it could do without policies to encourage indigenous invention and innovation. Consequently, there has been little of this. Research in a uniquely comprehensive and reliable database, for example, showing patentable inventions in relation to population, revealed it as the third lowest of all the advanced countries (members of the OECD).2 In fact, public funding of research only began when an ambitious civil servant persuaded the government to establish Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to provide money for university research, with himself as its first director. This underwrote large subsidies to universities, based on a simple linear theory of industrial innovation. According to this, money invested in basic research would lead to opportunities for applied research, out of which new products and jobs could be expected to come eventually. Public funding of research This had worked the first time that public money had been invested in scientific research, which was in the establishment of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (now called the Max Planck Institutes) in Germany. These funded and carried out basic research, which led to saleable products...

Dedicated to a peptide chemist of few words and immense impact: Louis A. Carpino

Dedicated to a peptide chemist of few words and immense impact: Louis A. Carpino

The future of German transport and mobility research from a geographical perspective. A viewpoint on challenges and needs

The main objective of this article is to reflect on the structure of the mobility and transport research landscape in Germany, in particular its current situation, its historic development and its future prospect. Thus, we describe its heterogeneity in terms of disciplinary characteristics and key objectives by identifying four academic subdivisions. We argue that this structure has developed differently from international discourse because of historical factors such as the dominance of the car for industrial politics, a strong political movement for the mitigation of climate change and specific funding structures. Furthermore, we discuss the reasons why German researchers do (not) participate in an international and Anglo-American language discourse. Against this background, we conclude with five conceptual suggestions for improved German transport and mobility research in the future: the need for (i) both fundamental and applied research, (ii) interdisciplinary work, (iii) experimental designs, (iv) a justification for both international and national language research, and (v) the creation of interdisciplinary research centres (e.g. Max Planck institutes).

ACS collaborates with Max Planck Society on open-access plan

In a notable development in open-access publishing, the American Chemical Society has formed a 4-year strategic partnership with the Max Planck Society (MPG) to provide researchers affiliated with Max Planck Institutes the opportunity to disseminate—through open access—100% of their research articles published in ACS journals. In addition, Max Planck researchers will receive full access to ACS Publications’ journals and Chemical & Engineering News’s Global Enterprise institutional edition. C&EN is published by ACS. “We are committed to supporting researchers in publishing open access in the journal of their choice while ensuring the quality, reliability, and preservation of the scholarly record,” says James Milne, senior vice president of the Journals Publishing Group at ACS Publications. Under the partnership, open-access publication fees, which would normally be paid for by individual authors, will instead be supported through a “read and publish” arrangement between ACS and the Max Planck Digital Libra...

CERCA Centres: The awakening of Catalan Research

The 42 CERCA centres existing today come from a historical origin plus a new wave of creation of new R&D centres starting approximately in 2000. They all have their own legal status under the umbrella of the CERCA Institution (I-CERCA). I-CERCA plays a control and coordinating role including evaluation, selection of directors, merging CERCA centres, national and international promotion, technology transfer benchmarking, etc. CERCA centres are built on a basis of institutional collaboration with universities and hospitals (who fund them in kind), and promoted by the Government of Catalonia (who funds them in cash with 100 million euros annually that represent 25% of their global income). The outputs measured by ERCs granted, coordination of H2020 projects, HRS4R awards, etc. are impressive. The comparison of their scientific production (and impact) in 2012–2014 with CNRS, Max Planck Institutes and CSIC is surprising! CERCA’s contribution to the expanding Catalan Science is crystal-clear.

German neurology and neurologists during the Third Reich: the aftermath

The article discusses the consequences for neurology as a discipline which resulted from neurologists' participation in the crimes committed under National Socialism (NS). Chronologically, the current literature distinguishes mainly four overlapping stages: (1) a first phase was characterized by legal persecution and "denazification", which was also the time of the Nuremberg doctors' trial in which no neurologists were on trial. A detailed documentation of the trial for the German medical profession was published by Alexander Mitscherlich. (2) In the subsequent practice of wide amnestying and reintegration of former Nazi followers during the 1950s, neurologists were no exception as its elite continued in their positions. The year 1953 was the year of the Lisbon scandal, when chiefly Dutch representatives protested against the participation of Julius Hallervorden in the International Congress of Neurology. The newly founded societies, the German Society for Neurology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurologie, DGN) and the German Society for Psychiatry and Neurology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, DGPN), unanimously supported their member. (3) The next period was characterized by a nascent criticism of the prevailing attitude of covering up the crimes committed by physicians during the Nazi period. The discovery of incriminating brain sections at various Max Planck Institutes brought neurology to the focus of the debate. (4) Since the 1980s and 1990s historians (of medicine) have been systematically examining medicine's Nazi past in a professional way, which resulted in a noticeable increase of knowledge. Additionally, a new generation of scholars provoked a change of mind insofar as they recognized medicine's responsibility for the crimes committed between 1933 and 1945. We expect that future historical research will further elucidate the history of neurology during the NS regime and have consequences for our current understanding of research ethics.

MAXNET Energy – Focusing Research in Chemical Energy Conversion on the Electrocatlytic Oxygen Evolution

Abstract MAXNET Energy is an initiative of the Max Planck society in which eight Max Planck institutes and two external partner institutions form a research consortium aiming at a deeper understanding of the electrocatalytic conversion of small molecules. We give an overview of the activities within the MAXNET Energy research consortium. The main focus of research is the electrocatalytic water splitting reaction with an emphasis on the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Activities span a broad range from creation of novel catalysts by means of chemical or material synthesis, characterization and analysis applying innovative electrochemical techniques, atomistic simulations of state-of-the-art x-ray spectroscopy up to model-based systems analysis of coupled reaction and transport mechanisms. Synergy between the partners in the consortium is generated by two modes of cooperation – one in which instrumentation, techniques and expertise are shared, and one in which common standard materials and test protocols are used jointly for optimal comparability of results and to direct further development. We outline the special structure of the research consortium, give an overview of its members and their expertise and review recent scientific achievements in materials science as well as chemical and physical analysis and techniques. Due to the extreme conditions a catalyst has to endure in the OER, a central requirement for a good oxygen evolution catalyst is not only its activity, but even more so its high stability. Hence, besides detailed degradation studies, a central feature of MAXNET Energy is a standardized test setup/protocol for catalyst stability, which we propose in this contribution.

Taiwan’s science miracle

In the past two decades, a flourishing economy and maturing infrastructure have Taiwanese physicists both staying home more and engaging internationally.

Mission statements and self-descriptions of German extra-university research institutes: A qualitative content analysis

Research institutes generate knowledge that contributes to the progress of science and society. Thus, they display certain specific organizational characterizations. This paper examines the variations in the descriptions of German extra-university research institutes by using a qualitative content analysis. It investigates the mission statements and self-descriptions from Max Planck institutes, Fraunhofer institutes, and government research agencies related to the material sciences in order to discuss differences among the institutes and to understand how they cope with external expectations. The findings reveal that the missions of the scientific associations tend to highlight scientific and other orientations. Those research institutes open to scientific communication and non-scientific problems tend to associate with non-scientific orientations. Based on these findings, I argue that external assessments of research institutes should pay attention to the organizations' self-description and asserted connections to science and society. The use of this perspective should minimize conflicts concerning the appropriate representation of such institutes. Copyright The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

Introduction to EU Grants and Fellowships for PhD students and early Post-docs

This talk is based on the presentation “Introduction to EU Grants and Fellowships for PhD students and early Post-docs” and aims at informing young scientists about individual funding schemes in FP7 Specific Programmes “People” and “Ideas”. It also aims at encouraging young scientists employed at Max Planck Institutes in the “Regional Cluster Bavaria”, or scientists who wish to come to Max Planck Institutes which are part of the cluster, to benefit from the support of the Regional EU Office Bavaria, whose consultants can give valuable administrative and tailor-made internal advice to add on the success of a competitive scientific proposal.

Rattraper le nouvel Occident : « L’initiative d’excellence » allemande, les études régionales et la re-production des inégalités

In the wake of the recent university reforms, the new academic division of labor in Germany has subserviently followed the U.S.-model of creating a rift between research and teaching universities by establishing on the one hand so-called “elite universities” that benefit from considerable state funding and on the other hand trying to reduce the rest to pedagogical carbon copies of standard curricula that can only award bachelor‘s or at most master‘s degrees and where the teaching load allows (almost) no research. The so-called “excellence initiative”, an evaluation process taking place between 2006 and 2007, in the course of which 9 universities - among which the Free University of Berlin, the University of Munich, and the University of Heidelberg - were designated as “elite universities”, represents Germany‘s hitherto clearest and most highly institutionalized example of a state policy aimed at confining research to specialized institutions, such as was already the case with the Max Planck institutes, the Leibniz institutes and the Fraunhofer societies founded in the 1970s and 1980s. However, while earlier steps in this direction only created a wider array of employment options for researchers, the argument of this paper is that the excellence initiative represents what has been called a process of “indirect commercialization” (Reinhard Kreckel) or an instance of “academic capitalism” (Slaughter/Leslie) of/in the Western European university system, which traditionally relied on state financing and state control of university finances. To this end, the paper proceeds in two steps: First, following Reinhard Kreckel‘s argument that neoliberal globalization exerts new economic and fiscal pressures on the state that are then passed on to the higher education systems depending on them, the paper looks at how the new elite discourse of German higher education is producing new structures of exclusion instead of the professed more egalitarian and meritocratic system of self-designated “knowledge societies”. Second, using the examples of recent calls for grant applications by Germany‘s ministry of education and state-funded research agencies, the paper zooms in on the revival of area studies as one of the prominent targets of the excellence initiative and funding in order to show how strong state financial support for inequality and democratization research (in the context of Latin American studies) and transformation research (in the context of Eastern European studies) reinforces the main assumptions of modernization theory and reproduces the asymmetries of knowledge production characteristic of Euro- and state-centered approaches to the issues in question.

Proteomics for biomedicine: a half‐completed journey

Proteomics for biomedicine: a half‐completed journey

High-efficiency Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: A Review

MAXNET Energy is an initiative of the Max Planck society in which eight Max Planck institutes and two external partner institutions form a research consortium aiming at a deeper understanding of the electrocatalytic conversion of small molecules. We give an overview of the activities within the MAXNET Energy research consortium. The main focus of research is the electrocatalytic water splitting reaction with an emphasis on the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Activities span a broad range from creation of novel catalysts by means of chemical or material synthesis, characterization and analysis applying innovative electrochemical techniques, atomistic simulations of state-of-the-art x-ray spectroscopy up to model-based systems analysis of coupled reaction and transport mechanisms. Synergy between the partners in the consortium is generated by two modes of cooperation – one in which instrumentation, techniques and expertise are shared, and one in which common standard materials and test protocols are used jointly for optimal comparability of results and to direct further development. We outline the special structure of the research consortium, give an overview of its members and their expertise and review recent scientific achievements in materials science as well as chemical and physical analysis and techniques. Due to the extreme conditions a catalyst has to endure in the OER, a central requirement for a good oxygen evolution catalyst is not only its activity, but even more so its high stability. Hence, besides detailed degradation studies, a central feature of MAXNET Energy is a standardized test setup/protocol for catalyst stability, which we propose in this contribution.

Boom time for neuroscience in China

Summary A decade after the foundation of the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, the field enjoys rapid growth and can attract young investigators back from abroad. Michael Gross reports.

Phase-coherent frequency comparison of optical clocks using a telecommunication fiber link

We have explored the performance of 2 "dark fibers" of a commercial telecommunication fiber link for a remote comparison of optical clocks. These fibers establish a network in Germany that will eventually link optical frequency standards at PTB with those at the Institute of Quantum Optics (IQ) at the Leibniz University of Hanover, and the Max Planck Institutes in Erlangen (MPL) and Garching (MPQ). We demonstrate for the first time that within several minutes a phase coherent comparison of clock lasers at the few 10(-15) level can also be accomplished when the lasers are more than 100 km apart. Based on the performance of the fiber link to the IQ, we estimate the expected stability for the link from PTB to MPQ via MPL that bridges a distance of approximately 900 km.

On track to tenure‐track

A former South American politician once quipped that even a local election in his country resulted in more casualties than a revolution in Germany. His comments were not intended to address questionable political campaign techniques, but rather to comment on the inability of Germans to stage proper revolutions. Yet, with little attention from the public, nothing short of a small revolution is now underway at German universities. Until recently, all universities in Germany were officially considered to be equal: it did not matter where one studied, and students often selected universities based on their attractive locale rather than on their academic reputations. However, recent initiatives—foremost the German government's Excellence Initiative—have changed things irreversibly. In particular, it encourages universities to develop focused research profiles, thus transforming the overall landscape of German universities. Of course, such differences existed before the initiative began—no university can support research in every field—but this new development means that these differences are now publicly recognized and supported. At the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main—in partnership with the Max Planck Institutes of Biophysics and of Brain Research—this ‘focus‐building’ has led to the creation of the joint Cluster of Excellence Frankfurt: Macromolecular …