Max Planck - University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics" offers a platform for close cooperation and scientific exchange between uOttawa and the Max Planck Society. Since 2012, uOttawa and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have maintained intensive research collaboration through student and staff exchanges, international workshops and joint research projects. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of very high-intensity laser sources, the development of optical methods relevant to quantum information science, and the manufacture of components for classical and quantum photonics. The purpose of Max Planck Research Groups (MPRG) at various universities is to strengthen networking between universities and institutes of the Max Planck Society. In 2004, the Max-Planck Society established a new Max Planck Research Group, "Optics, Information, and Photonics", at the Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg to advance collaboration between that university and the Max Planck Society. In June 2008, after an evaluation, the senate of the Max Planck Society decided to convert this group to a Max Planck institute and thereupon founded the "Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light" (German "Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts"). with effect from January 1, 2009. In 2016, the new building was opened. The project was made by the Munich architecture bureau "Fritsch + Tschaidse Architekten GmbH".