What is the Nobel Prize and what to expect this year?
The Nobel Prizes are slated to be announced this week with the first award in medicine or physiology won by Hungary’s Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman of the United States on Monday.
Their research led to the first mRNA vaccines to fight COVID-19, made by Pfizer and Moderna, according to the awarding body.What are the Nobel Prizes?
The Nobel Prizes were created by Alfred Nobel, a wealthy 19th-century businessman, inventor and chemist from Sweden. In his will, Nobel dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, five years after his death.
Nobel named the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the prizes for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for literature, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university for physiology or medicine and the Norwegian parliament for peace.
In 1968, Sweden’s central bank introduced the Prize in Economic Sciences with a donation to the Nobel Foundation. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, according to the same principles as the other prizes. It is now presented with the other prizes despite Nobel purists’ assertion that the economics prize is not a Nobel Prize.
What to expect this year
Six Nobel Prizes are awarded each year, recognising an individual’s or group’s contribution to a specific field.The award for physics will be announced on Tuesday no earlier than 09:45 GMT.
The award for chemistry will be announced on Wednesday no earlier than 09:45 GMT.
The award for literature will be announced on Thursday no earlier than 11:00 GMT.
The award for peace will be announced on Friday no earlier than 09:00 GMT.
The award for economics will be announced on October 9 no earlier than 09:45 GMT.
All of the announcements will be livestreamed at nobelprize.org.
The Nobel Peace Prize
There are 351 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. This is the second highest number of nominees since 2016, when 376 candidates were nominated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian dissident Alexey Navalny are among bookmakers’ favorites for this year’s peace prize.However, peace researchers predicted that the honour could go to activists working towards women’s rights and the environment.
Historically, the vast majority of Nobel Prize winners have been white men. With Monday’s announcement, 61 women have won Nobel Prizes out of the 956 individuals who have been honoured, including 26 in the scientific categories.However, peace researchers predicted that the honour could go to activists working towards women’s rights and the environment.
Historically, the vast majority of Nobel Prize winners have been white men. With Monday’s announcement, 61 women have won Nobel Prizes out of the 956 individuals who have been honoured, including 26 in the scientific categories.The peace prize is handed out by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee in Oslo while the other prizes are presented by the Swedish king in Stockholm’s Concert Hall.
