In light of the EUI’s 50th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies, current and former fellows, together with the broader EUI community, reflect on the programme’s intellectual trajectory and the evolving challenges of conducting academically rigorous research with societal impact, while navigating publication, teaching, and professional development.
“This year's conference is particularly special,” shared Sergio Puig, Director of the Max Weber Programme. Marking two decades of support for researchers from around the world, he described it as "a rare moment to reconnect across generations, reflect on the programme's impact, and celebrate the vibrant intellectual community that has grown around it.”
Taking place on 10-11 June 2026, the 20th annual Max Weber June Conference unfolds across nine panel sessions, with discussions spanning academic careers, interdisciplinarity, mentorship, artificial intelligence, and the future of research. To mark the anniversary, Sam Friedman (London School of Economics and Political Science) delivered the keynote speech on, “How to make an elite: the symbolic market for ordinariness and the long shadow of class origin”.
This year’s organising committee brings together Fellows Ayako Hatano (Law), Mafalda Lopes (History), Diya Sarkar Ghosh (Law), Llorenç Soler (Political and Social Sciences), Rajkumar Sahoo (Florence School of Transnational Governance), and Khushi Singh Rathore (History). On behalf of the committee, Hatano highlighted what makes the conference distinctive:
“This conference is unique because it brings together multiple generations of Max Weber Fellows – current fellows, former fellows, faculty members, and members of the wider EUI community – to mark two decades of the Max Weber Programme. More than a celebration, it is an opportunity to reconnect, exchange experiences across disciplines and cohorts, and reflect on the programme's enduring impact on academic careers and intellectual communities.”
“We sincerely hope that participants will leave with a renewed sense of connection to the Max Weber network and its values,” she added.
That sense of reconnection is what keeps former fellows coming back. Daniëlle Flonk, who has attended as both fellow and alumna, knows the draw well. “The Max Weber Conference is a unique place for interaction between current and previous fellows. It feels like partly a reunion, and partly an opportunity to expand networks. It truly is an event that fosters the community across cohorts.”
While the conference offers an opportunity to celebrate the programme’s achievements and bring fellows together across cohorts, Puig emphasised its forward-looking dimension as a space for discussing the future of academic research and the evolving role of the Max Weber Programme:
“The conference is not only about looking back; it also provides a forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities facing researchers today, reaffirming the programme’s commitment to academic excellence, interdisciplinary dialogue, and professional development. In this sense, the event serves both as a celebration of an extraordinary legacy and as a conversation about the future of scholarship.”
Ramon Marimon, who directed the Max Weber Programme from 2006 to 2013, recalled what set it apart from the start. Where postdocs in the social sciences and humanities often had to choose between working in isolation or being absorbed into a senior scholar's project, the Max Weber model offered an alternative: “The Max Weber Programme was unique from the beginning in offering a third possibility: to concentrate on the development of a research and academic career in a collective environment.”
That model, he argued, matters more, not less, as artificial intelligence reshapes academic work. “AI tools give more value to conceptual and creative research and teaching, and this type of excellence grows better in a collective, interactive, multidisciplinary environment," he said. "In other words, the Max Weber Programme model seems even more appropriate in the future that has already started.”
For Hatano, that staying power comes down to what the programme fundamentally is. “More than anything else, the Max Weber Programme is the EUI's portal to the world, within Europe and far beyond it. It is where Europe and the world can meet on equal intellectual footing, where ideas travel across geographies and disciplines, and where thinking globally is not an aspiration but a lived reality. That diversity of perspectives, of origin, of experience, of intellectual traditions, is not incidental to the programme. It is its greatest strength.”
The Max Weber Programme is the largest international postdoctoral programme in the social sciences and humanities in Europe. It is known for pioneering the idea of a taught postdoctoral programme in the social and historical sciences—a distinct model that combines support for research with teaching, academic communication, and other career development skills. It fosters multidisciplinary research collaboration across departments and between established and early career researchers within the EUI.