Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Lecture.
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo in Norway on 10 December 1964.
The first nomination arrived to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in January 1963. Not until 2014, the nominators were revealed.
Nobel Prize lessons
Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and work are a fascinating part of an important stage of 20th-century history. His ideas extend far beyond his own time and the society in which he lived. Discrimination and conflicts because of skin colour or ethnicity manifest themselves in a variety of contexts in our own world.
Check out this Nobel Prize lesson – ready to use in the classroom.
Check out this Nobel Prize lesson – ready to use in the classroom.
Martin Luther King Jr. marching past Browns Chapel in Selma, Alabama.
Photo © Flip Schulke/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
Nobel Prize nominations
By the end of this month, people who fulfil the criteria set out by the prize awarding institutions are allowed to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize.
Hundreds or thousands of nominations are received every year from members of academies, university professors, scientists, previous Nobel Prize laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and more.
Find answers to the most commonly asked questions about nominations in the FAQ.
Hundreds or thousands of nominations are received every year from members of academies, university professors, scientists, previous Nobel Prize laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and more.
Find answers to the most commonly asked questions about nominations in the FAQ.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
The traditional costume Kailash Satyarthi wore when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 2014.
Photo: Nobel Prize Museum
Watch the documentary series
A team of female Yazidi deminers in Iraq attempting to clear their land of mines left behind by ISIS. A team of scientists on an extraordinary mission in Mozambique to help better our understanding of climate change. A man building prosthetic legs to help victims of war walk again in South Sudan … All are inspired by Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Learn more
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) has become the strongest symbol of non-violence in the 20th century. It is widely held – in retrospect – that the Indian national leader should have been selected for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was nominated several times, but was never awarded the prize. Why?
Mahatma Gandhi laughing.
Photo: Public domain.
Nobel Prizes 2021
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex systems” with one half jointly to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” and the other half to Giorgio Parisi “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.”
©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 was awarded jointly to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.”
©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 was awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.”
© The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 was awarded to Abdulrazak Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2021
The Nobel Peace Prize 2021 was awarded jointly to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021 was divided, one half awarded to David Card “for his empirical contributions to labour economics”, the other half jointly to Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships.”
©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Watch the program
Nobel Minds
Five of the 2021 Nobel Prize laureates met digitally on 4 December 2021 for the traditional round-table discussion and TV program ‘Nobel Minds’ hosted by the BBC’s Zeinab Badawi. The laureates discussed their research, discoveries and achievements and how these might find a practical application.
Nobel Prize Conversations
In this podcast episode with Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee she shares her heartbreaking life story growing up during the Liberian civil war. The consequences from the war required her to grow up quickly or as she puts it herself: ”one minute I was a teenager and the next minute I was a woman”.
Nobel Prize Concert
The 2021 Nobel Prize Concert featured acclaimed Argentina-born cellist Sol Gabetta, American conductor Ryan Bancroft and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
Watch the concert here
Watch the concert here
Nobel Prize Concert 2021 featuring cellist Sol Gabetta, conductor Ryan Bancroft and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Niklas Elmehed
Nobel Week Dialogue
Nobel Peace Prize Forum
In this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Forum leading experts and innovators explored why and how food plays a central role in reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how every person can join the effort to eradicate hunger and malnutrition.
Watch the forum
Watch the forum
Explore prizes and laureates
Play a game!
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1930
How much do you know about blood types? Did you know that human blood groups were discovered by Nobel Prize laureate Karl Landsteiner in 1901?
Learn more about the way to find out about the human blood groups, blood typing and the importance of safe blood transfusions. See if you can save the lives of the patients in the game!
Learn more about the way to find out about the human blood groups, blood typing and the importance of safe blood transfusions. See if you can save the lives of the patients in the game!
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1904
Is it possible to train a dog to drool on command? Learn about conditioned reflexes in this interactive game!
With this animated game, teachers are able to illustrate classical conditioning in the classroom. The object of the game is to train Pavlov’s dog to respond to a signal that it will associate with being fed.
In 1904, Ivan Pavlov was awarded with Nobel Prize for his pioneering studies of how the digestive system works.
With this animated game, teachers are able to illustrate classical conditioning in the classroom. The object of the game is to train Pavlov’s dog to respond to a signal that it will associate with being fed.
In 1904, Ivan Pavlov was awarded with Nobel Prize for his pioneering studies of how the digestive system works.
Nobel Prize lessons
Now you can bring the achievements made by the 2021 Nobel Prize laureates into the classroom! The lessons are so easy to use that a teacher can look through the guide, watch the slides, print the texts for students and then start the class.
The Nobel Prize medal
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
Alfred Nobel – Established the Nobel Prize
On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will in Paris, France. The Swedish dynamite millionaire, who thought that his invention would end all wars, had now realised that it was a very deadly product. Wanting to make amends, he did what no man of such wealth had done before …
On 10 December 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded, in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Read more about the first prizes.
Chemist, engineer and industrialist Alfred Nobel left 31 million SEK (today about 265 million dollar) to fund the Nobel Prizes. Read more about his life and work.
What are you looking for? Search the website.
Nobel destinations
Stockholm, Sweden
The museum showcases the discoveries and creativity of the Nobel Prize laureates.
Photo: Åke Eson Lindman
Oslo, Norway
The story of each peace laureate is told at the museum.
Photo: Johannes Granseth/Nobel Peace Center
In memoriam
Desmond Tutu, awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize “for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa”, passed away on 26 December aged 90.
Robert H. Grubbs passed away on 19 December 2021, 79 years old. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2005 for “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis.”
Former South-African president Frederik Willem de Klerk was awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for
"work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa." 
Physics Laureate Antony Hewish passed away on 13 September, aged 97. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1974 for his pioneering research in radio astrophysics and the studies that led to detecting pulsars.
