MAX PLANCK SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (German: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften, http://www.mpg.de), an official scientific research organization of Germany, is headquartered in Munich. The non-profit organization is funded by the government and does research in areas of particular scientific importance and in highly specialized or interdisciplinary fields. The society comprises 79 research institutes and facilities with some 11,000 staff and 6,900 scholarship holders, guest scientists and doctoral candidates. Each of its research facilities is devoted to a separate field or group of fields covering the medical and biological sciences, chemistry, physics, engineering and the humanities.