India is a special focus of the Max Planck Society in its international collaborations. This correlates to the steadily rising number of internationally acknowledged Indian institutes that are working in scientific fields, in which Max Planck Institutes also look for partners worldwide. In the year 2008 for example, 557 young visiting scientists at Max Planck Institutes came from India, an increase of over 80% over the past five years, which makes India the most important partner for international exchange of young scientists together with China. At the same time, the number of Indian doctoral students in the last 10 years has gone up almost 20 times. Today every 10th doctoral student working and doing research at Max Planck Institutes from abroad is from India. Many of them are enrolled in the International Max Planck Research Schools which, traditionally, prove to be extremely attractive to Indian doctoral students. Furthermore, as many as 30 project co-operations are being pursued by scientists from Max Planck Institutes jointly with partners in India.

At present 15 Max Planck Partner Groups are working in India, as many as in no other country. Partner Groups are led by former Indian guest researchers at Max Planck Institutes of proven scientific excellence, who have returned to their institutions in India and continue their research activities in close co-operation with their former hosts. The work of each of the Partner Groups is supported for five years, allowing the returnees to build up their own Research Groups in India and to remain in close research interaction with a Max Planck Institute.

In addition, the Max Planck Society with its "Max Planck India Fellowships" has developed a new and India-specific programme, with the goal of linking young Indian top researchers to Max Planck Institutes. In 2009 25 young Indian scientists hold a “Max Planck India Fellowship”. The fellowship gives young Indian researchers the opportunity to spend minimum one month every year at a Max Planck Institute for a period of up to four years. In addition travel to third countries for research purposes is possible.

Through start-up workshops scientists from Max Planck Institutes are able to acquaint themselves more closely with research conditions in India and to make initial contacts to Indian scientists. So far 13 such very successful workshops have been conducted. In 2009 the workshops focus on the social sciences and humanities: The Max Planck Institute for Human Development is organizing a workshop on "Cultivating Emotion – History, Culture, Society" and the Max Planck Institute for social Anthropology holds a workshop on "Law & Social Sciences in South Asia", thereby also contributing to setting up LASSNET (The Law and Social Sciences Network in India).

Moreover the Max Planck Society is looking into the possibilities of increasing its institutional involvement by establishing Max Planck Centers in India.

International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS) are graduate schools run jointly between Max Planck Institutes and Universities. They are particularly popular amongst Indian junior scientists who constitute the second largest group of participants from abroad (95 in 2007). These international doctoral programmes, which are jointly supported by Max Planck Institutes and their partner universities, attract junior scientists from all over the world: At the nearly 50 IMPRS about 60 percent of graduate students are foreign nationals. The programme is run in English. For more information please see (www.institutes.mpg.de).

Under the „Memorandum of Understanding“ between the Max Planck Society and the Department of Science & Technology signed in 2004 co-operation with the Indian Partner Institutes is to be promoted and intensified

On October 30, 2007, Federal Chancellor Merkel and the Indian Prime Minister Singh flagged off the Indo-German science exhibition train, the "Science Express" at Delhi railway station. This exhibition on wheels, based on the Science Tunnel of the Max Planck Society, travelled 15,000 kilometres up to the beginning of June and stopped in 57 cities all over India. The success of the train was overwhelming as shown by the 2.2 Million visitors who came to see it. It is touring 51 cities in 2009, now under the full responsibility of the Department of Science & Technology.