Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. From 1901 to 2018, the award has been bestowed on a total of 180 individuals.

About Nobel Prize in Chemistry in brief

Summary Nobel Prize in ChemistryThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. From 1901 to 2018, the award has been bestowed on a total of 180 individuals. The 2020 prize was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing known as CRISPR Cas-9. Only five other women have received the prize, including Marie Curie, her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Ada Yonath and Frances H. Arnold. The committee and institution serving as the selection board for the prize typically announce the names of the laureates in October. The prize is then awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on 10December.

A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected each year. It consists of a gold medal, a diploma, and a cash grant. The Nobel Laureates in chemistry are selected by a committee that consists of five members elected by the Academy. In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts until only the laureate remain. While posthumous nominations are not permitted, if the individual died in the months between the nomination and the decision of the committee, the prize is being recognized by the Nobel Foundation. In practice, some nominees do become known – it is also common for publicists to make such a claim – or not a claim at all. It requires a list of approximately two hundred names to be produced by the committee. This list is forwarded to selected experts in the field but all approximately fifteen names are removed.