Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

New developments on campus

The Max Planck Institutes for Biology, Intelligent Systems, Biological Cybernetics, and the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory are located on the Max Planck Campus in Tübingen. In 2019, a revised institutional concept was adopted, reflecting a change in the direction of the MPI for Biological Cybernetics following a new appointment.

The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics was founded in Tübingen in 1968. The origin of the Institute goes back to the cybernetics research group founded by Otto Hahn ten years earlier. Parts of the existing building date from this time, and three departments and a total of 12 Max Planck Research Groups will conduct research there in the future.

The focus of the Institute is biological cybernetics, which involves understanding and describing the behavior of animals and humans based, among other things, on the information processing in the nervous systems. The researchers strive to recreate such control mechanisms using models and machines that can react intelligently to external influences.

The campus still contains a residential building and the old animal stable, both of which will make way for the currently applied-for construction work and will be demolished at the end of all currently planned measures on the campus. Furthermore, the MPI includes the Magnetic Resonance Center (MRZ), built in 2007, which will remain as the main institute building. The Virtual Reality Hall, built in 2006, is also part of the campus ensemble. This hall is currently being renovated in a separate major construction project to accommodate the future workshop, server, and associated technical areas, as well as office and storage space.