The official website of the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize Conversations

Nobel Peace Prize 2021

”Real life is stranger than fiction right now”

“We must get up, we must work like maniacs – because time is running out.” Maria Ressa speaks passionately as she discusses how authoritarians exploit social media to unravel democracy, what needs to be done to fight this and when she thinks the damage might become irreversible.

Listen to a new episode of Nobel Prize Conversations!

Prizes and laureates

All Nobel Prizes

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize and the prize in economic sciences have been awarded 609 times. See the full list of prizes and laureates here.

Group photo of the 1993 Nobel Prize laureates.

© Nobel Foundation. Photo: Boo Jonsson

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.

2022 Nobel Prizes

2022 Nobel Prize announcements

This year’s Nobel Prize announcements will take place 3–10 October.

See the full schedule

Nobel Prize nominations

Who can nominate for a Nobel Prize?

No person can nominate herself/himself for a Nobel Prize. But who can? And how are these persons chosen?

Jane Addams nomination for Carl von Ossietzky

Who selects the laureates?

In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the institutions responsible for the prizes he wished to be established.

Explore the nomination archive

Search among the names of the nominees and nominators, as well as additional information about the nominations 1901-1966.

Mahatma Gandhi – The missing laureate

Mohandas Gandhi has become the strongest symbol of non-violence in the 20th century. He was nominated several times, but was never awarded the prize. Why?

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!

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.

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

News

2022 Nobel Prize Concert

Soprano Diana Damrau soloist at the Nobel Prize Concert

Bringing extra star power to this year’s Nobel Prize Concert on 8 December will be German soprano Diana Damrau. Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck will lead the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the concert.

New Nobel Center takes the next step

The Nobel Foundation has announced that funding has been secured to build the Nobel Center − a home for science, culture and dialogue to be located at Slussen in central Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Center will offer a broad range of public activities including exhibitions, school programmes, lectures and conversations about the major issues of the future.

Read more here

Illustration of the view from inside the Nobel Center.

Illustration: TMRW.inc

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.”

Globe — ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021

Their tools revolutionised the construction of molecules

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 was awarded jointly to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.”

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

Discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch

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

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.”

The Nobel Peace Prize 2021

For their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression

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

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

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 …

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.

Alfred Nobel – scientist and inventor

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.

A bust of Alfred Nobel, surrounded by a beautiful wall of flowers

Nobel destinations

Stockholm, Sweden

Nobel Prize Museum

The Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, illustrates a century of creativity, where visitors can follow the changes of the 20th century through the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Prize laureates.

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

Located in the heart of Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Peace Center is a place where you can experience and learn about the various Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

NPC Nye Nobels Hage 10 — The story of each peace laureate is told at the museum.

Photo: Johannes Granseth/Nobel Peace Center

In memoriam

Peace negotiator David Trimble dies at 77

David Trimble passed away on 25 July. He was awarded the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize together with John Hume for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Fullerene discoverer Robert F. Curl Jr. dies

Robert F. Curl Jr. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 for the discovery of a new form of the element carbon, the fullerenes. He passed away on 3 July, age 88.

Ben R. Mottelson 1926‒2022

Physics laureate Ben R. Mottelson passed away on 13 May, age 95. He was awarded the Nobel Prize “for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection”.

Sidney Altman passes away at 82

Molecular biologist Sidney Altman passed away on 5 April. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the the unexpected discovery that RNA is not only a molecule of heredity in living cells, but also can serve as a biocatalyst.

19 remarkable scientists and their stories

THE FUTURE WE WANT TOGETHER

Sign up to the "Monthly" newsletter