Born in 1929 in Berlin, Renate Mayntz pursued her studies in the USA (B.A. 1950) and at the Free University of Berlin (Dr. phil. 1953), where she also completed her habilitation (1957). Her initial research activities took place at the UNESCO Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, later as a DFG Fellow and Rockefeller Fellow in the USA. In 1965, she became a Full Professor of Sociology at the Free University of Berlin, then at the University of Administrative Sciences Speyer in 1971, and at the University of Cologne in 1973.
In 1985, she was the Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne, serving as Director at the MPIfG from 1985 until her retirement in 1997. For her outstanding scientific contributions, Renate Mayntz received the Prize of the German Society for Sociology in 2006 and the Innovation Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2010. In recognition of her pioneering work in organisational sociology in Germany, she was awarded the Ernst Hellmut Vits Prize in 2008.
