Renate Mayntz

Renate Mayntz (born 28 April 1929, Berlin) is a German sociologist. She was director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and is now director emerita.

Mayntz studied in the United States, and in 1957 received her doctorate from the Free University of Berlin. She taught at the Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer and the University of Cologne before founding, in 1984, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. In 1999, she won the Schader Award, Germany's highest accolade for a social scientist, and in 2004 she was awarded the Bielefelder Wissenschaftspreis.

Her areas of research include social theory, management policy, development and application of policies, the development of technology, science and the development of science and policy, and transnationals and the structures of transnational governance.