Inaugural Institute visit by Senator Maryam Blumenthal
On 6 November 2025, Maryam Blumenthal, Senator for Science, Research, and Equality of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, made her first official visit to the Institute. Discussions focused on current Institute research projects, the importance of science communication, and the Institute’s upcoming 100th anniversary.
Managing Director Anne Röthel and Institute Director Ralf Michaels used the opportunity of Senator Blumenthal’s visit to present selected topics of current research. Discussions also focused on the Institute’s close ties to the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg and to Bucerius Law School, academic entities with which the Institute forms a legal research cluster.
Senator for Science Maryam Blumenthal: "With the exceptional research it performs, the Max Planck Institute for Private Law plays an indispensable role in strengthening our democratic society. We see this in work that is focused on issues of an everyday but nevertheless essential quality – relating to matters such as self-determination and gender identity, or the fundamental question of just who or what has the right to have rights. At the same time, through its global network and through its involvement in the setting of transnational legal standards, the Institute influences key debates far beyond Germany’s borders. I am very grateful for the Institute’s important work and for the insights shared today."
Founded in Berlin in 1926 under the umbrella of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Institute was admitted to the Max Planck Society in 1949 and has since 1956 been located in Hamburg. It was the first of the three Max Planck Institutes now to be found in Hamburg. As part of the upcoming centennial activities, the Institute will initiate enhanced public dialogue in order to present its varied research and highlight the social relevance of its work.
At the close of her visit, the senator, who is also a member of the Institute’s board of trustees, toured the Institute’s library. Utilized every year by several hundred visiting scholars from around the world, the Institute library possesses one of the world’s most important collections of specialist civil law literature.
Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law / Johanna Detering