Peter Gruss - Work As President of The Max Planck Society

Work As President of The Max Planck Society

Upon taking office, Gruss was regarded by the press as an "American-style man of action" and an "unassuming high flyer".

In his inaugural speech, Gruss focused on the financial scope for science: he called for the introduction of a collective bargaining law specifically for the field of science to enable Germany to attract the world's best scientists. He also spoke out in favour of a reliable financial framework: "Only adequate rates of increase – predefined for a lengthy period of time – for the budget of the MPS can guarantee planning security". The institutes were faced with potentially having to make cuts in their budgets after the Society's budget had not been raised as much as requested in past years.

Peter Gruss pointed out on numerous occasions that the appointment of Directors at the Max Planck Society involved competing with some of the world's leading research institutions: "Yet we at Max Planck are not competing with the average – we are competing with the Harvards, the Cambridges and ETH Zurichs of this world". He went on to say that Germany was not internationally competitive when it came to pay, but that the Max Planck Society was largely able to offset this disadvantage due to the support it enjoyed from the Max Planck Foundation and thanks to its world-renowned planning security. A first step towards improving the financial conditions for top scientists from overseas was the Freedom of Science Initiative of the German Government, which has offered non-university research institutions new financial freedoms since 2009.

During Peter Gruss's term in office, numerous institutes were reorganised or newly established: The MPI for Research on Collective Goods and the MPI for Ornithology had their status raised from research group to institute; the MPI for History was reorganised to become the MPI for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, while the MPI for Biology of Ageing and the MPI for the Science of Light were newly established. The Max Planck Florida Institute marks the first institute of the Max Planck Society to be established outside of Europe; it is funded by the State of Florida and the local county. Furthermore, the MPI for Metals Research was converted to the MPI for Intelligent Systems and a sub-section of the institute was newly established at Tübingen.

The Lead Discovery Center was founded as a new subsidiary in Dortmund in 2008 to improve the technology transfer of newly developed pharmaceutical drugs.

The Society's international networking is particularly successful: After the publication of news on the foundation of the Florida Institute, which came to be seen as a "model", the German news magazine "Spiegel" reported that the MPS had received requests from Canada and South Korea to establish institutes there. More than 40 per cent of the recently appointed Directors at the MPS are from outside of Germany, and 25 per cent of all Directors in the Max Planck Society are of non-German origin.

In an interview published by Spiegel online, Peter Gruss outlined a new strategy for establishing "Max Planck Centers" for cooperating with foreign research institutions; some of these are already in place in cities like Shanghai, Buenos Aires and New Delhi.