"In 2019, shortly after finishing her master's at Nanjing University in China, Xinyi Zhao opened an e-mail to learn that she had been offered a PhD position at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. "When I told my parents, they asked me to double-check whether the offer was real, as they weren't familiar with the institute." But Zhao knew of its glowing scientific reputation."
"Between 2012 and 2022, the number of international scientists at the country's four largest non-university research organizations doubled, from 8,115 to 16,625. These institutes - the Max Planck Society, the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and the Fraunhofer Society - all ranked among the world's top 20 non-profit organizations for research output in 2025, according to the Nature Index Research Leaders. The country's universities also maintain a strong international profile, with 8 included in the world's top 100, as reported in the Times Higher Education's 2026 World University Rankings."
""Germany is a country without natural resources," says Otmar Wiestler, former president of the Helmholtz Association. "We don't have cheap labour. All we have is the brains of our people." As a result, he adds, "the German government is really committed to promoting research and innovation"."
Xinyi Zhao accepted a PhD at the Max Planck Institute in 2019 and now works as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Between 2012 and 2022, the number of international scientists at Germany's four largest non-university research organizations doubled from 8,115 to 16,625. The Max Planck, Leibniz, Helmholtz and Fraunhofer organizations ranked among the world's top 20 non-profit research producers in 2025, and eight German universities appeared in the global top 100 in 2026. Success is linked to a specialized institutional ecosystem and a stable flow of public research funding. Otmar Wiestler notes that government commitment to research and innovation compensates for limited natural resources or cheap labour.
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