The Max Planck Society also hosts the Cornell, Maryland, and Max Planck Pre-Doctoral Research School, an intense week of lectures, informal conversations with guest faculty and fellow students from all over the world, professional development panels with academic and industrial speakers, research poster sessions, and social events.

The KWG was one of the world's leading research organizations; its board of directors included scientists like Walther Bothe, Peter Debye, Albert Einstein, and Fritz Haber.

From 2004 to 2017, the "Max Planck Research Award" was conferred annually to two internationally renowned scientists, one of whom was working in Germany and one in another country.

The objective of the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in presenting this joint research award was to give added momentum to specialist fields that were either not yet established in Germany or that deserved to be expanded.

[12][13][14][15] The Max Planck Society is formally an eingetragener Verein, a registered association with the institute directors as scientific members having equal voting rights.

In 2007, the Society established its first non-European centre, with an institute on the Jupiter campus of Florida Atlantic University focusing on neuroscience.

[62] In 2008, the European General Court ruled in a case brought by a PhD student against the Max Planck Society that "a researcher preparing a doctoral thesis on the basis of a grant contract concluded with the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften eV, must be regarded as a worker within the meaning of Article 39 EC only if his activities are performed for a certain period of time under the direction of an institute forming part of that association and if, in return for those activities, he receives remuneration".

Of the 5,300 students who at the time wrote their PhD thesis at the 80 Max Planck Institutes 2,000 had an employment contract.

[65] The allegation of wage dumping for young scientists was discussed during the passing of the 2012 "Wissenschaftsfreiheitsgesetz" (Scientific Freedom Law) in the German Parliament.

[66] In February 2024, the Max Planck Society faced widespread criticism for terminating the employment of Lebanese-Australian professor Ghassan Hage from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, citing his social media posts on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as incompatible with the society's core values.

[67] This decision was publicly condemned by numerous scholars and academic organizations, who argued it infringed on Hage's freedom of expression.

[79][80] The Max Planck Society's has made public statements expressing support for the state of Israel in the Israel–Hamas war.