Attract­ing and nurtur­ing talent, revital­iz­ing processes and strate­gies, embrac­ing social responsibility

At the June 23, 2022 meeting, Hector Fellow Patrick Cramer was unani­mously elected as the next presi­dent of the Max Planck Society, one of Germany's leading insti­tu­tions for basic research. Cramer will take over from current Presi­dent Martin Strat­mann on the 75th anniver­sary of the found­ing of the Max Planck Society in June 2023 in Göttingen.

Hector Fellow Patrick Cramer has been a Scien­tific Member of the Max Planck Society and Direc­tor at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Multi­dis­ci­pli­nary Natural Sciences since 2014. The chair­man of the Presi­den­tial Search Commit­tee justi­fied the proposal by stating that Cramer " has not only a brilliant scien­tific record that has been recog­nized by numer­ous awards, he also brings with him exten­sive exper­tise from univer­sity self-gover­nance and a number of differ­ing organi­za­tions, and thus the manage­ment skills required to lead a scien­tific organi­za­tion on the scale of the Max Planck Society." Cramer himself expressed his delight about the election and empha­sized his inten­tion to use his "experi­ences collected at various scien­tific insti­tu­tions to promote cutting-edge research in Germany".

In his inaugural speech Patrick Cramer answered the question of how the Max Planck Society should continue to be success­ful after 75 years. The new Presi­dent identi­fied three key areas of action for him: attract­ing and nurtur­ing talent, revital­iz­ing processes and strate­gies, and embrac­ing social responsibility.