From November 27 to November 30, directors and group leaders of the Max Planck Society visited our institute, where they delivered different lectures and worked with scholars and students.
For four days researchers and fellows from the Biomedicine Research Institute of Buenos Aires (IBioBA – CONICET – Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society) participated in lectures and debates with directors, group leaders and students of the Max Planck Society of Germany. Also, members of the research groups associated with the Max Planck Society and with whom the IBioBA has collaborations, led by Fernando Stefani, principal investigator of the CONICET at the Center for Research in Bionanosciences (CIBION), and by Hernán Grecco, independent researcher at the Institute of Physics of Buenos Aires (IFIBA, UBA-CONICET) attended the meeting. Cooperation between different research groups and the interaction between students and consolidated researchers are two main pillars in a successful international scientific collaboration.
During the opening, Eduardo Arzt, director of IBioBA, and Herbert Jäckle, director at the Max Planck and former vice-president of the Max Planck Society (MPS), commented that this meeting had two goals: “That students interact with senior researchers of the Max Planck Institutes and, in addition, to help strengthen collaboration with colleagues from these institutes”.
“We are guided by an incredible freedom to do the science we want,” said Jäckle, adding that at the MPS: “We value people who think outside the box, and our investigations are driven by curiosity. At the Max Planck Society, insight precedes application”.
Herbert Jäckle, Rolf Kemler, Philippe Bastiaens, Aneta Koseska, Christian Schröter, Gerd Vorbrüggen, Benjamin Kaupp and Ahmed Mansouri, all Max Planck directors or group leaders, were in charge or the lectures.
In addition, one-on-one meetings were organized between scientists of the Max Planck Society and students and young researchers of the IBioBA and of the mentioned groups of the CIBION and the IFIBA, where they presented their work, results and perspectives.
But not all the activities were academic lectures. Workshops on how to design a scientific career, how to choose research projects and on the ethics in science were conducted, among others.