News and Press Releases

Regine Paul, a political scientist and professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, is joining the MPIfG in the middle of April to take up a position as head of a new research group. Technology and Statehood will officially start its work at the beginning of October, exploring articulations of competition statehood in global tech races across time, space, and specific technologies, as well as their social and political implications. more

Hanna Kuusela, an associate professor in sociology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, is the MPIfG’s Scholar in Residence for 2026. Joining the Institute at the end of March, Kuusela will work at the intersection of economic power and cultural legitimization to ask: Who are the rich, how do they legitimize their wealth, and what does that tell us about the society in which they live?  more

The Board of Trustees of the MPIfG convened at the end of March for its annual meeting. The role of the MPIfG Board of Trustees is to promote the exchange of ideas and information between the MPIfG and the general public. more

The MPIfG’s fourth annual event to mark International Women’s Day took place on March 9 this year with a program featuring talks by two external speakers on structural inequalities in academia. more

The political economist Pasquale V. (Lucio) Baccaro celebrates his sixtieth birthday on March 29. The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne will honor its director with an academic conference on May 22, which will reflect on his work to date in the fields of industrial relations, research on governance, and the growth model approach.
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MPIfG senior researcher Pálma Polyák is set to begin a Max Weber Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence in September 2025. The program is one of the most prestigious postdoctoral awards in the social sciences and humanities. more

In mid-February Marco Oberti successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cologne. In “Forced Back into the Game but Unfit to Play: The Late Rebirth of European Industrial State Finance in the New Phase of Global Capitalism,” he investigates why industrial policy and state development finance have returned to the political agenda after a decades-long absence. more