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Wangari Maathai Day 2022

Nobel Peace Prize 2004

Defender of the earth, fighter for democracy

Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She founded the Green Belt Movement which led to the planting of over 50 million trees in Africa. She also played an active part in the struggle for democracy in Kenya.

Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for ‘her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.’

Active Citizen, a new Minecraft: Education Edition experience

Play a game!

Meet Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Minecraft

Discover the stories of four peace laureates – Malala Yousafzai, Wangari Maathai, Dalai Lama and Fridtjof Nansen – in the new Minecraft universe ‘Active Citizen’.

The game is available in 29 languages and has been created in partnership with Nobel Peace Center, Minecraft: Education Edition and Games for Change. Play the game at Nobel Peace Center
Active citizen game

Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize 1905

"One of the eternal truths is that happiness is created and developed in peace"

Baroness Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote one of the nineteenth century’s most influential books, the anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms (1889). She became a close friend of Alfred Nobel’s in the 1870s, and they corresponded for years on the subject of peace.
Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Featured Nobel Peace Prize laureates

Nobel Peace Prize 1975

“Peace, progress, human rights"

“Peace, progress, human rights – these three goals are insolubly linked to one another: it is impossible to achieve one of these goals if the other two are ignored.”
Read Andrei Sakharov’s peace lecture.
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Nobel Peace Prize 2001

"Peace must be sought, above all"

Kofi Annan was awarded for his work for a better organized and more peaceful world as Secretary-General for the United Nations.
Read Kofi Annan’s Nobel Prize lecture.
Kofi Annan giving his Nobel Prize lecture

Kofi Annan giving his Nobel Prize lecture

© Pressens Bild AB. Photo: Heiko Junge

Nobel Prize nominations

2022 Nobel Peace Prize nominations

The Norwegian Nobel Committee received 343 candidates for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. 92 of these are organizations.

Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony 2021.

Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony 2021 in the Oslo City Hall in Norway.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Geir Anders Rybakken Ørslien.

Are the nominations made public?

Did you know that there is no public list of the current year’s nominees for the peace prize? The complete list of nominees of any year’s prizes is not disclosed for 50 years. The same goes for all the prize categories. Learn more about the nomination process in a Q&A with Olav Njølstad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.

Peace Prize nomination process

The nomination process for Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

© Nobel Media. Ill. Niklas Elmehed

Nobel Prize laureates share their stories

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009

Ada Yonath: "Already at five, I was actively investigating the world"

“In one of my experiments I tried to measure the height of our tiny balcony using the furniture from inside the apartment. I put a table on another table, and a stool on top …”
Ada Yonath with dishes used for crystallization experiments

Ada E. Yonath with dishes used for crystallization experiments.

Credits: Micheline Pelletier/Corbis,

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018

James P. Allison: "I can’t help but cry whenever I tell this story"

“I can’t help but cry whenever I tell this story. My meeting with Sharon was my first experience of how years of research as a basic scientist could have an impact on patients.”
Honjo and Allison's meeting with cancer survivors (2)

Tasuku Honjo and James P. Allison's meeting with cancer survivors

© Nobel Media. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud

Nobel Prize in Physics 2018

Donna Strickland: “I have always loved going to school"

“I have always loved going to school. I was one of those rare kids who was happy to have summer vacation over so I could go back to school. I started this love affair with school at Victory Public School.”
Donna Strickland in the laboratory

Donna Strickland in the laboratory.

Courtesy of University of Waterloo

Explore and learn

19 remarkable scientists and their stories

Explore a storytelling experience that celebrates and explores the contributions, careers and lives of 19 women who have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their scientific achievements.
Explore 'Women who changed science'

Watch the documentary series

Five documentaries inspired by the Nobel Peace Prize

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.

Into the fire - image

Nobel Prize Conversations

Podcast episode with peace activist Leymah Gbowee

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 conversations

Nobel Prize laureates share their thoughts

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016

"Every kid has a talent that we should encourage"

University professor and chemistry laureate Bernard Feringa is a firm believer that all children have a talent, it just needs to be found and encouraged. We spoke to him about how important that encouragement can be.
Bernard Feringa at Groningen University

Bernard Feringa at Groningen University. Photo taken in November 2013.

Copyright © University of Groningen

Nobel Prize lecture in physics

Nobel Prize in Physics 2021

“Not enough has happened to stop global warming”

Physics laureate Klaus Hasselmann speaks about climate change and how we all need to start thinking more about sustainability.

Play a game!

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1930

The Blood Typing Game

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!
Blood typing game
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1904

Pavlov's Dog

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.
Pavlov's Dog Game

Nobel Prizes 2021

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021

They found hidden patterns in the climate and in other complex phenomena

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 Literature 2021

An unending exploration driven by intellectual passion

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.”
Abdulrazak Gurnah

Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021

Natural experiments help answer important questions

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

Explore prizes and laureates

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 Concert

A breathtaking evening

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
Nobel Prize Concert 2021

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

The city of the future

How do we make cities better? The 2021 Nobel Week Dialogue explored the nature of the city, and possible visions of a hoped-for future.
Read more and watch the discussions here

Nobel Peace Prize Forum

The Food Effect

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
Nobel Peace Prize Forum

Nobel Prize lessons

Easy to use lessons about the 2021 Nobel Prizes

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.

Nobel Medal

The Nobel Prize medal

Photo: Alexander Mahmoud

Alfred Nobel – Established the Nobel Prize

Alfred Nobel's last will

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 …

Alfred Nobel Will

The very first Nobel Prizes

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.

The first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was held in 1901 at the Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm.

What are you looking for? Search the website.

Nobel destinations

Stockholm, Sweden

Nobel Prize Museum

The Nobel Prize: Ideas Changing the World (3)

The museum showcases the discoveries and creativity of the Nobel Prize laureates.

Photo: Åke Eson Lindman

Oslo, Norway

Nobel Peace Center

NPC Nye Nobels Hage 10

The story of each peace laureate is told at the museum.

Photo: Johannes Granseth/Nobel Peace Center

In memoriam

Former archbishop Desmond Tutu passes away

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.

Chemist Robert H. Grubbs dies

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 president F.W, de Klerk passes away

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."
Frederik Willem de Klerk