If the Nobel Prizes were designed today, what would change?
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Members of the Swedish royal family join laureates on stage at the 2023 Nobel awards ceremony. Credit: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty
Nobel prize season is always a time of excitement and speculation about potential winners, but it also brings criticism about the constraints imposed by the rules for the world’s most prestigious scientific prizes. Is it, after all, realistic to expect the stipulations specified by Alfred Nobel 129 years ago to remain appropriate for science today?
Although there is no shortage of scientific prizes, some of which (such as the US$3-million Breakthrough prizes) are more financially rewarding than the Nobels, none is yet afforded the same cultural status and prestige. So, if the Nobels were being launched today, would their formula need to be different?
“Personally I would say the criteria for Nobel prizes would not have to be significantly modified, but remain effective in the way Alfred Nobel intended,” says chemist Bengt Nordén at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, who was chair of the chemistry Nobel Committee for three years.
