Nobel Prize

Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833, to Immanuel NobelImmanuel NobelImmanuel Nobel (1801–1872) was a Swedish inventor, engineer and industrialist who worked as a builder and inventor in Stockholm before founding an engineering works in St. Petersburg and developing naval mines for Russia; he was the father of Robert, Ludvig, Alfred and Emil Nobel.Open the full entry, an engineer and inventor, and Andriette Ahlsell Nobel. He had two older brothers, Robert (born 1829) and Ludvig (born 1831).⁠[1]

After his mechanical workshop in St. Petersburg, which supplied equipment to the Russian army, began to prosper, Immanuel Nobel moved the family to St. Petersburg in 1842; a younger brother, Emil, was born in 1843. The Nobel brothers were taught by private tutors, and by the age of 17 Alfred Nobel could speak and write Swedish, Russian, French, English and German.⁠[1]

His father sent him abroad to train as a chemical engineer. In Paris he worked in the private laboratory of the chemist T. J. Pelouze, where he met the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerine; back in Russia he worked with his father to develop nitroglycerine into a commercially and technically useful explosive.⁠[1]

After the family returned to Sweden in 1863, Alfred Nobel concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive. Accidents during the experiments killed several people, including his brother Emil, and the authorities banned such experiments within Stockholm’s city limits, so he moved them to a barge on Lake Mälaren. In 1864 he began mass production of nitroglycerine.⁠[1]

In 1866 he found that mixing nitroglycerine with kieselguhr produced a paste that could be shaped into rods; he patented the material the following year under the name “dynamite” and also invented a detonator, or blasting cap. He set up factories in 90 places and travelled to them in more than 20 countries, and by his death in 1896 he held 355 patents.⁠[1]

On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his third and last will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. It directed that his remaining realisable assets be converted by his executors into safe securities forming a fund, the interest on which was to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”⁠[2]

The interest was to be divided into five equal parts: for the most important discovery or invention in physics; the most important chemical discovery or improvement; the most important discovery in physiology or medicine; the most outstanding work in an ideal direction in literature; and the most or best work for fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the promotion of peace congresses. The physics and chemistry prizes were to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the physiology or medicine prize by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the literature prize by “the Academy in Stockholm,” and the peace prize by a committee of five persons selected by the Norwegian Storting. The will expressly required that no consideration be given to the nationality of candidates.⁠[2][3]

Alfred Nobel once advertised for a secretary; the Austrian Bertha Kinsky took the job briefly before returning to Austria to marry Count Arthur von Suttner. The two corresponded for years, and Bertha von Suttner became active in the peace movement and wrote “Lay Down Your Arms”; Nobel’s will included a prize for those who promoted peace.⁠[1]

Alfred Nobel died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896. When his will was opened and read, it caused controversy in Sweden and internationally: his family opposed the establishment of the prize, and the prize awarders he had named initially refused to do what he asked.⁠[1][2]

The will named two executors, Nobel’s young assistant Ragnar Sohlman and the engineer Rudolf Lilljequist, who were to create an organisation for the prize and negotiate with Nobel’s relatives and the prize awarders. The will was flawed in many legal respects and some tried to have it declared invalid; others objected that the prizes were not restricted to Swedes and other Scandinavians, and King Oscar II of Sweden worked behind the scenes against its aims.⁠[4][5]

Some members of the Nobel family sued the executors. On June 5, 1898, a settlement was reached with certain of Nobel’s heirs, who acknowledged the will and renounced further claims on the estate, subject to two reservations: the statutes common to the prize awarders were to be drawn up in consultation with a representative of Robert NobelRobert NobelRobert Nobel (1829–1896) was a Swedish engineer and industrialist, the elder brother of Ludvig Nobel and Alfred Nobel, who bought a refinery in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the 1870s, starting the Nobel family’s oil business, and was one of the co-founders of the oil company Branobel.Open the full entry’s family and submitted to the Crown for approval; and each prize was to be awarded at least once in every five-year period, with a prize amount of no less than 60 percent of the yield available for it and no division into more than three prizes.⁠[3][4]

The main discussions took place in 1898–1899 in a small group of representatives of the future prize awarders; at that point only the Storting had accepted the task. Two arrangements proved decisive for the others to accept: a reliable nomination system, and research institutes, the Nobel Institutes, funded by the foundation but belonging to the prize-awarding institutions.⁠[4]

On June 29, 1900, the King in Council promulgated the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. In the autumn of that year the foundation’s first Board of Directors was elected, with former Prime Minister Erik Gustaf Boström as Chairman, and from January 1, 1901, the Board took over management of the foundation’s assets. Henrik Santesson, the first Executive Director, was also legal counsel of the Norwegian Storting in Sweden.⁠[5]

Under the original statutes the Board consisted of “five Swedish men,” with the Chairman designated by the King in Council. Because Norway was moving toward the dissolution of its union with Sweden, the Norwegians did not take seats on the Board in 1900 and limited their involvement to serving as trustees and auditors.⁠[5]

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded on December 10, 1901. The prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and literature were presented in Stockholm, at a ceremony held at the Royal Academy of Music, and the peace prize in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway.⁠[5][1][6]

The first laureates were Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in physics, for the discovery of the rays subsequently named after him; Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff in chemistry, for the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions; Emil Adolf von Behring in physiology or medicine, for his work on serum therapy, especially against diphtheria; Sully Prudhomme in literature; and, sharing the peace prize equally, Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy.⁠[7][8][9][10][11]

Because the reverse designs had not been approved by each prize-awarding institution in time, the 1901 laureates apparently first received a temporary medal with Alfred Nobel’s portrait struck in a baser metal. The first official medals for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and literature, designed by the Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg, were not struck until September 1902.⁠[12]

Several prizes were not awarded during the First World War: physics in 1916; chemistry in 1916 and 1917; physiology or medicine from 1915 to 1918; literature in 1914 and 1918; and peace in 1914, 1915, 1916 and 1918. The 1917 Peace Prize went to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its efforts to care for wounded soldiers, prisoners of war and their families.⁠[6]

The award ceremony for the 1919 prizes, the first after the First World War, was moved to June of the following year in the hope of better weather. It took place on June 2, 1920, at the Royal Academy of Music, with the banquet at the Hasselbacken restaurant near the Skansen open-air museum; no members of the Royal Family attended because of the death of Crown Princess Margaretha. The ceremony then returned to December 10, and this remains the only change to the schedule.⁠[4]

The fund shrank in the early decades because of the conservative investments that followed from the will’s requirement of “safe securities,” and because of taxes. A 1904 parliamentary bill to grant tax exemption failed, and costs and taxes rose during and after the First World War, reducing the prize sum. With the support of Emanuel NobelEmanuel NobelEmanuel Nobel (1859–1932) was a Swedish-Russian industrialist, the eldest son of Ludvig Nobel and a nephew of Alfred Nobel, who led the Baku oil company Branobel from 1888 and helped carry out Alfred Nobel’s will, fleeing to Sweden after the Soviet nationalisation of 1918.Open the full entry, Alfred Nobel’s nephew, the foundation began a legal campaign that brought large reductions in its tax burden after 1927, from 40% to 3%; taxes later rose again, to 5% in 1938 and 21% after the Second World War.⁠[4]

During the Second World War the prizes in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine were not awarded from 1940 to 1942, the literature prize from 1940 to 1943, and the peace prize from 1939 to 1943. The 1944 Peace Prize again went to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its work on behalf of humanity during the war.⁠[6]

When the question came before parliament again, the argument that the Nobel Foundation should be treated as an academy prevailed, and the foundation became tax exempt in 1946. The exemption stopped the decline of its funds, but they did not really begin to grow until the 1980s, when they quadrupled over some 20 years.⁠[4]

Until then the foundation’s Chairmen had been senior officials: the first also served as Sweden’s prime minister for most of his term, and his successor had been foreign minister and chancellor of the Swedish universities. In 1960 the King appointed a scientist and Nobel laureate, Arne Tiselius, and since then the Chairman has been chosen exclusively from among the members of the prize-awarding bodies.⁠[5]

In 1968, to mark its tercentenary, Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, made a donation to the Nobel Foundation and established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, whose statutes were approved by the Crown on December 19, 1968. Meetings in 1967 had discussed making it “a sixth Nobel Prize,” but because the Nobel Prizes are by definition those named in Alfred Nobel’s will, it is not a Nobel Prize but a prize “in memory of Alfred Nobel.”⁠[4][3]

The bank makes an annual donation to the foundation covering the prize amount, the administrative costs of selecting the laureates and a share of the costs of the Nobel festivities. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was given the task of selecting the laureates from 1969. The foundation described the decision as ad hoc and not a precedent for new prizes in other fields; later proposals, including prizes in architecture, environmental sciences and agriculture, were all declined.⁠[4][13]

The first prize in economic sciences was awarded jointly to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969 “for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes.” Since 1969 it has been presented at the award ceremony in Stockholm.⁠[14][15]

From 1974 the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation have stipulated that a prize cannot be awarded posthumously unless death occurs after the announcement. Before 1974 the prize had been awarded posthumously only twice, to Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Literature, 1931) and Dag Hammarskjöld (Peace, 1961).⁠[6]

From the 1970s Executive Director Stig Ramel pursued the goal of restoring the fund to its 1901 value, which he regarded as the foundation’s moral obligation. In 1991 the funds were back to their original size, and the foundation marked its 90th anniversary with its most ambitious festivities to date; that year’s award ceremony was held in the Stockholm Globe Arena.⁠[4]

From the 1990s the foundation gave growing attention to the public image of the prize: it launched the website nobelprize.org in 1995, opened the Nobel Museum (later renamed the Nobel Prize Museum) in Stockholm in 2001 and founded the company Nobel Media in 2004, the same year the Nobel Peace Center opened in Oslo.⁠[4]

The Nobel Foundation celebrated its centenary on June 29, 2000. That year an important revision of its statutes allowed it to use realised capital gains from the sale of assets in addition to interest and dividends. Its fund capital then exceeded SEK 4 billion, and each Nobel Prize was worth SEK 9 million (about USD 900,000).⁠[5]

After the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced, it emerged that one of the laureates, Ralph Steinman, had died three days earlier. Having examined the statutes, the Board of the Nobel Foundation concluded, on an interpretation of the purpose of the rule, that he should remain a Nobel laureate.⁠[6]

On October 10, 2019, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy announced two literature prizes together: the 2018 prize to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and the 2019 prize to the Austrian author Peter Handke.⁠[16]

Because of the covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 laureates received their medals and diplomas in their home countries, and the Stockholm award ceremony was streamed from Stockholm City Hall.⁠[17]

On October 5, 2026, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Karl DeisserothKarl DeisserothKarl Deisseroth is an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). By introducing channelrhodopsin-2, a light-sensitive channel protein from green algae, into nerve cells, he pioneered optogenetics, the use of light to control the activity of specific neurons, for which he shared the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.Open the full entry (Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry), Peter HegemannPeter HegemannPeter Hegemann is a German biophysicist and the Hertie Senior Research Professor of Neuroscience at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Starting from the question of how the single-celled green alga Chlamydomonas senses light and swims toward it, he and Georg Nagel and others discovered the light-gated ion channels known as channelrhodopsins, laying the molecular foundation for optogenetics, for which he shared the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl Deisseroth and Georg Nagel.Open the full entry (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Georg NagelGeorg NagelGeorg Nagel is a German biophysicist and former professor of molecular plant physiology at the University of Würzburg. While working at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, he, Peter Hegemann, and others confirmed that the channelrhodopsins of green algae are ion channels opened directly by light, laying the foundation for optogenetics, for which he shared the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl Deisseroth and Peter Hegemann.Open the full entry (University of Würzburg) “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” Hegemann and Nagel discovered the protein channelrhodopsin in a single-celled alga, and Deisseroth turned it into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells.⁠[18]

On October 6 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” IceCube is a cubic kilometre of ice at the South Pole equipped with light sensors.⁠[19]

On October 7 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Henri B. Kagan of Université Paris-Sud and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”; Kagan was 95 at the time of the award.⁠[20][6]

On October 8 the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”⁠[21]

On October 9 the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.” Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin in Durban, South Africa, she has served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, and as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and currently sits as a judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide.⁠[22]

On October 12 the prize in economic sciences went to Robert E. HallRobert E. HallRobert E. Hall is an American economist, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University and senior fellow emeritus at the Hoover Institution, known for research on consumption, employment fluctuations and the flat tax; he long chaired NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee and shared the 2026 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Michael Woodford.Open the full entry of Stanford University and Michael WoodfordMichael WoodfordMichael Woodford is an American economist and John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, one of the main architects of New Keynesian monetary policy theory and author of Interest and Prices, who shared the 2026 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Robert E. Hall.Open the full entry of Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.” The six prizes of 2026 have ten laureates in all.⁠[23][24]

The Nobel Prizes are the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize. The physics and chemistry laureates are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the physiology or medicine laureates by Karolinska Institutet, the literature laureates by the Swedish Academy and the peace laureates by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.⁠[13][25]

Section 2 of the statutes provides that “the Academy in Stockholm” in the will means the Swedish Academy; that “literature” covers not only belles-lettres but also other writings of literary value by virtue of their form and style; that the duties of Karolinska Institutet are performed by its Nobel Assembly; and that “the preceding year” is to be understood as referring to the most recent achievements, with older works considered only if their significance has become apparent recently.⁠[3]

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has 50 members, and its Nobel Committee consists of five members and the Secretary; the Swedish Academy has 18 members, and its Nobel Committee for Literature four to five. The prize in physiology or medicine rewards discoveries of major importance; lifetime achievements or scientific leadership cannot be considered.⁠[26][27]

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Peace Prize since 1901. Its five members are appointed by the Storting, its composition reflects the relative strength of the parties in parliament, and it is assisted by expert advisers. Alfred Nobel left no explanation of why the peace prize was to be awarded by a Norwegian committee. Under the statutes, persons other than Norwegians may be members.⁠[25][3]

Under the statutes, a candidate must be nominated in writing by a person competent to do so, and personal applications are not considered; each year’s adjudication covers nominations received in the twelve months up to February 1. No appeal may be made against an award decision. Nominations, investigations and opinions may not be divulged, and an awarding body may open the underlying material to third parties only after at least 50 years have passed since the decision.⁠[3]

Nomination for the physics prize is by invitation. In September the Nobel Committee for Physics invites thousands of selected university professors and other scholars worldwide, alongside members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and previous physics laureates, to propose candidates, and nominations must arrive by January 31 of the following year. The committee consults experts from March to May, writes its report from June to August and submits it in September; after discussion at two meetings of the Academy’s Physics Class, the Academy chooses the laureates by majority vote in early October, and the decision is final.⁠[28]

For the prize in physiology or medicine, more than 3,000 confidential invitations are sent each year, and the Nobel Assembly chooses the laureates by majority vote on the first Monday in October. For literature, the Nobel Committee selects 15–20 preliminary candidates in April and narrows them to five priority candidates in May; Academy members read their work over the summer, and in early October the Academy chooses the laureate, who must receive more than half of the votes cast.⁠[26][27]

Nominations for the Peace Prize require no invitation. Qualified nominators include members of national assemblies and governments of sovereign states and current heads of state, members of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, university professors in relevant disciplines, directors of peace research and foreign policy institutes, and previous peace laureates, among others; the deadline is January 31. The committee usually draws up a short list of 20 to 30 candidates for assessment by the Norwegian Nobel Institute’s permanent advisers and seeks a unanimous decision. For 2026, 287 candidates were registered, 208 individuals and 79 organisations; the highest number was 376, in 2016.⁠[29]

A prize amount may be divided equally between two works that each merit a prize; if a rewarded work was produced by two or three persons, they receive the prize jointly; and in no case may a prize be divided between more than three persons. Work by a person who has died is not considered, but if a laureate dies before receiving the prize, it may still be presented. Each awarding body decides whether its prize may go to an institution or association.⁠[3]

If no work is found to be of the importance the will requires, the prize money is reserved until the following year, and if the prize still cannot be awarded, the amount is added to the foundation’s restricted funds. The same applies if a laureate declines the prize or fails to cash it before October 1 of the following year. Laureates are required, whenever possible, to give a lecture on the prize-winning work before, or within six months after, the Festival Day.⁠[3]

The foundation’s Board has its registered office in Stockholm and consists of seven members and two deputies, who must be Swedish or Norwegian citizens and are elected for two-year terms by the trustees of the prize-awarding bodies. There are fifteen trustees, six chosen by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and three by each of the other awarding bodies. At least one tenth of total annual income must be allocated to restricted funds.⁠[3]

Alfred Nobel’s fortune of some SEK 33 million was invested around the world, and moving it into a Swedish foundation required complex negotiations with tax authorities in several countries; the executors succeeded, with the fortune diminishing only slightly to about SEK 31 million. In 1901 a prize was worth SEK 150,782 and the market value of the invested capital was SEK 31,587,202; at December 2025 monetary value, the 1901 prize amount corresponds to about SEK 10.83 million.⁠[4][30]

The prize amount first reached SEK 1 million in 1981 and SEK 10 million in 2001; it was reduced to SEK 8 million in 2012, then raised to SEK 9 million in 2017, SEK 10 million in 2020 and SEK 11 million in 2023. In 2025 the market value of the invested capital was SEK 6,743,994,000.⁠[30]

The prize money for 2026 is SEK 12.0 million per full prize, shared equally among the laureates of a prize.⁠[31][18][20][23]

Each medal is, in the words of the statutes, “a gold medal bearing the image of the testator and an appropriate inscription.” All bear a portrait of Alfred Nobel on the front. The medals for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and literature were designed by Erik Lindberg and share the reverse inscription “Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes,” with images reflecting the symbols of each awarding institution; the physics and chemistry medals look the same.⁠[12][3]

The Peace Prize medal was designed in 1901 by the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, with Erik Lindberg making the dies from his design, and bears the inscription “Pro pace et fraternitate gentium”; the medal for the prize in economic sciences was designed by Gunvor Svensson-Lundqvist and has no inscription on the reverse.⁠[12]

Since 1901 the prizes have been presented each year on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. In Stockholm the ceremony is held at the Stockholm Concert Hall, where the laureates receive their prizes from the King of Sweden; the Peace Prize ceremony is held in Oslo City Hall, where the laureates receive the prize from the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Laureates receive a medal, a diploma and a document confirming the prize amount.⁠[15][28][6]

In its early years the foundation planned a large “Nobel Palace” for the award, but this proved too expensive, and it settled for holding the ceremony in the city’s new Concert Hall and the banquet in the new City Hall. During Nobel Week the laureates also visit the awarding institutions, universities and schools and give public lectures and interviews; the Nobel lectures are published in the Nobel Prize yearbook together with the laureates’ biographical essays and banquet speeches.⁠[4]

Two laureates declined the prize: Jean-Paul Sartre, awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, who had consistently declined all official honours; and Le Duc Tho, awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US Secretary of State Henry KissingerHenry KissingerHenry Kissinger (1923–2023) was a German-born American diplomat and political scientist who served as US national security adviser from 1969 to 1975 and as the 56th secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, the first person to hold both posts at once. He led the opening to China, détente and arms control talks with the Soviet Union, the Vietnam ceasefire negotiations and shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, and shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho; his role in Chile, Cambodia, South Asia and East Timor drew lasting criticism.Open the full entry for negotiating the Vietnam peace accord, who said he was not in a position to accept and gave the situation in Vietnam as his reason.⁠[6]

Four other laureates were forced by the authorities to decline: Adolf Hitler forbade three German laureates, Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt and Gerhard Domagk, from accepting, and they later received the diploma and medal but not the prize amount; and Boris Pasternak, the 1958 literature laureate, initially accepted but was later coerced by the Soviet authorities into declining.⁠[6]

From 1901 to 2026 the Nobel Prizes and the prize in economic sciences were awarded 639 times to 1,036 laureates (people and organisations); because some received the prize more than once, this amounts to 1,000 individuals and 28 organisations. Of these prizes, 365 went to one laureate, 151 were shared by two and 123 by three.⁠[6]

By category: physics, 120 prizes and 231 laureates; chemistry, 118 and 202; physiology or medicine, 117 and 235; literature, 119 and 123; peace, 107 prizes, with 113 awards to individuals and 31 to organisations; and economic sciences, awarded every year since 1969, 58 prizes to 101 individuals, three of them women (Elinor Ostrom, Esther Duflo and Claudia Goldin). The literature prize has been shared by two laureates only in 1904, 1917, 1966 and 1974.⁠[6][32][33]

Prizes have not been awarded on 49 occasions, most of them during the two World Wars: six times in physics, eight in chemistry, nine in physiology or medicine, seven in literature and 19 in peace. Women had received the prizes 70 times by 2026.⁠[6]

Linus Pauling is the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes (Chemistry 1954, Peace 1962). Marie Curie received the 1903 physics and 1911 chemistry prizes, John Bardeen the physics prize twice (1956, 1972), and Frederick Sanger (1958, 1980) and K. Barry Sharpless (2001, 2022) the chemistry prize twice each; the International Committee of the Red Cross has received the Peace Prize three times and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees twice (1954, 1981). The youngest laureate is Malala Yousafzai (Peace, 2014), at 17, and the oldest John B. Goodenough (Chemistry, 2019), at 97.⁠[6]

The Nobel Foundation is a private institution with ultimate responsibility for fulfilling the intentions of Alfred Nobel’s will. Its main mission is to manage Nobel’s fortune so as to secure the prize’s long-term financial standing and guarantee the independence of the prize-awarding institutions in selecting laureates; it also administers and develops the Nobel Prize’s brands and intangible assets, safeguards the awarding institutions’ common interests and represents the Nobel organisation as a whole. Today the Swedish Government’s only role in the foundation is to appoint one auditor, who chairs the auditors.⁠[34][5]

The foundation was allowed to invest in real estate in 1939 and gained wider freedom to manage its capital in the 1950s. In the 1970s up to 60% of the capital could be invested in shares; real estate holdings were phased out from the mid-1980s, and in the 1990s up to 70% was invested in shares. When the dot-com bubble burst around 2000 the fund fell from almost SEK 5 billion to little more than SEK 3 billion, and it suffered heavy losses again in 2008–2009; in the 2010s its allocation was roughly 40% shares, 20% bonds and 40% other investments, mainly hedge funds, overseen with the help of an investment committee. Its only building today is its own office at Sturegatan 14 in Stockholm.⁠[4][5]

One of the foundation’s main projects in the 2020s is a Nobel Center on the Stockholm waterfront, planned to open in 2031 as a venue for exhibitions, workshops, lectures and cultural events.⁠[4]

Nobel Prize: Official website: https://www.nobelprize.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[35]

X: Public account: https://x.com/NobelPrize (opens in a new window).⁠[35]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nobelprize/ (opens in a new window).⁠[35]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/thenobelprize (opens in a new window).⁠[35]