“Our goal has to be to bring new knowledge to the world for the good of everyone.” Patrick Cramer addressed the entire Institute for about 40 Minutes to talk about what common goal unites all the different Max Planck Institutes and what values are at the heart of the Max Planck Society. He made it clear that, when talking about knowledge, he meant new, transformative knowledge that can change the world: “We have to be the ones to question the paradigm, we have to be the ones to lead the way, we have to be the ones to develop a new technology, get totally new insights.”

For Patrick Cramer, there are also 3 core values of the MPG: True Excellence, which goes behind scientific excellence to other areas such as communication, the strategy of hiring the best people and having a strong community spirit, the “Wir-Gefühl”. On that last point he went on to say, that the more then 24,000 employees of the MPG have to help each other and stand united. Everyone he said, both scientists and administration, can contribute to keeping the Max Planck Society in the Champions league of the best reseach organizations of the world and bringing new knowledge to the world for the good of society.

He also had warm words for the situation he found at MPL, saying: “I am extremely happy with the large list of young research group leaders I will get the chance to talk to today! This must be a great place with a great working atmosphere, because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to attract so many of them.”

Patrick Cramer and Katja Ketterle met with the three current directors of the institute as well as with the research group leaders, students and our head of administration, before moving on to the next stop on the presidential institute tour.