The projects in Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s department (formerly Department III) were completed in 2011. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger has continued his scholarly work as Emeritus Scientific Member at the MPIWG. 

The research activities of the department revolved around the practical, conceptual, and cultural conditions of scientifc innovation and the historical dynamics of scientifc change. Research centered on the area of the life sciences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, with a focus on the history and epistemology of experimentation, history of objects and spaces of knowledge, and formation of concepts and uses of theory. The three main projects were "Experimentalization of Life," "A Cultural History of Heredity," and "Knowledge in the Making: Drawing and Writing as Research Techniques."