THE announcement of the 2025 Nobel Prize winners is scheduled for next week, with global attention focused on those who have made outstanding contributions across medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, economics and peace.
AP reported today that since their inception in 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been regarded as among the highest honours worldwide, recognising achievements that have profoundly benefited humanity. The laureates join a distinguished lineage of recipients including Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa.
The prizes were established by Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, whose fortune derived largely from his invention of dynamite. Nobel’s will directed that his wealth fund annual awards to those who, in the preceding year, have “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
In 1968, a sixth prize in economics was added by Sweden’s central bank. While purists emphasise that this prize is not a traditional Nobel award, it is presented alongside the others.
The Nobel nomination process is conducted with strict confidentiality. Committees do not disclose nominees or deliberations for 50 years, though nominators may publicly share their recommendations.
Candidates cannot nominate themselves but may be put forward multiple times by others, including members of the prize committees.
The Nobel Peace Prize is distinct in that it typically honours achievements from the previous year and is awarded in Oslo, Norway, unlike the science prizes presented in Stockholm. Scientific awards often recognise breakthroughs only after they have stood the test of time, sometimes decades later.
Notably, U.S. President Donald Trump has been nominated for the Peace Prize several times since 2018, including for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Arab states.
The 2025 prize announcements begin on Monday with the medicine prize, followed by physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, literature on Thursday, the Peace Prize on Friday, and the economics prize on 13 October.
The awards ceremony will take place on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. Each prize is accompanied by a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1.2 million), as well as an 18-carat gold medal and diploma.
The prize money may be shared by up to three laureates per category. - October 3, 2025
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