There are 351 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this yr.
The Nobel Prizes are slated to be introduced this week with the primary award in drugs or physiology received by Hungary’s Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman of the US on Monday.
Their analysis led to the primary mRNA vaccines to struggle COVID-19, made by Pfizer and Moderna, in accordance with the awarding physique.
Here’s what we all know concerning the Nobel Prizes:
What are the Nobel Prizes?
The Nobel Prizes have been created by Alfred Nobel, a rich Nineteenth-century businessman, inventor and chemist from Sweden. In his will, Nobel dictated that his property ought to be used to fund “prizes to those that, throughout the previous yr, have conferred the best profit to humankind”.
The primary Nobel Prizes have been awarded in 1901, 5 years after his loss of life.
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 college for physiology or drugs and the Norwegian parliament for peace.
In 1968, Sweden’s central financial institution launched the Prize in Financial Sciences with a donation to the Nobel Basis. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in accordance with the identical rules as the opposite prizes. It’s now offered with the opposite prizes regardless of Nobel purists’ assertion that the economics prize is just not a Nobel Prize.
What to anticipate this yr
Six Nobel Prizes are awarded every year, recognising a person’s or group’s contribution to a particular subject.
- The award for physics will probably be introduced on Tuesday no sooner than 09:45 GMT.
- The award for chemistry will probably be introduced on Wednesday no sooner than 09:45 GMT.
- The award for literature will probably be introduced on Thursday no sooner than 11:00 GMT.
- The award for peace will probably be introduced on Friday no sooner than 09:00 GMT.
- The award for economics will probably be introduced on October 9 no sooner than 09:45 GMT.
The entire bulletins will probably be livestreamed at nobelprize.org.
The Nobel Peace Prize
There are 351 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this yr. That is the second highest variety of nominees since 2016, when 376 candidates have been nominated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian dissident Alexey Navalny are amongst bookmakers’ favorites for this yr’s peace prize.
Nevertheless, peace researchers predicted that the honour may go to activists working in the direction of ladies’s rights and the surroundings.
Traditionally, the overwhelming majority of Nobel Prize winners have been white males. With Monday’s announcement, 61 ladies have received Nobel Prizes out of the 956 people who’ve been honoured, together with 26 within the scientific classes.
What do Nobel laureates obtain?
Nobel Prize winners obtain a Nobel Prize diploma, a gold medal and a cheque. The quantity on the cheque this yr is about $1m. Every diploma is a singular murals, created by Swedish and Norwegian artists and calligraphers.
The laureates acquire these prizes in an official ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s loss of life.
The peace prize is handed out by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee in Oslo whereas the opposite prizes are offered by the Swedish king in Stockholm’s Live performance Corridor.
Earlier Nobel laureates
Notable Nobel laureates embrace scientists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Marie Curie, authors like Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus, and inspirational leaders like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Mom Teresa.
Whereas most achievements are nonetheless celebrated, some awards haven’t aged properly, corresponding to Egas Moniz’s 1949 prize in physiology or drugs for the since banned and discredited follow of lobotomy.
Two winners have refused their Nobel Prizes up to now: French author Jean-Paul Sartre, who turned down the literature prize in 1964, and Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, who declined the peace prize that he was meant to share with US diplomat Henry Kissinger in 1973.
