Nobel Prize 2026 Announcements Begin Next Week: Key Dates, History and Traditions
Key Takeaways
- •The 2026 Nobel Prize announcements open Monday with the physiology or medicine award and conclude October 12 with the economics prize.
- •Each Nobel Prize carries a recently increased cash award of 12 million Swedish crowns, equivalent to about $1.21 million.
- •Alfred Nobel's will created the prizes, but a legal dispute over his estate delayed the first awards until 1901, making this year's laureates part of the 125th anniversary class.
- •Nobel personally assigned the awarding institutions: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for physics and chemistry, the Swedish Academy for literature, the Karolinska Institute for medicine, and the Norwegian parliament for peace, with the economics prize added by Sweden's central bank in 1968.
- •The prizes will be presented on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death, at ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm followed by a banquet at Stockholm City Hall for roughly 1,300 guests.
STOCKHOLM — The 2026 Nobel Prize announcements begin next week, opening with the award for physiology or medicine on Monday and concluding with the unveiling of the economics winners on October 12. Announcements in the remaining categories will follow on the days in between.
The prizes — also awarded for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace — carry a recently increased cash award of 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.21 million) and confer a level of instant fame that remains unthinkable for the vast majority of scientists.
Who Was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by the wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, whose will directed that the bulk of his estate be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
Best known as the inventor of dynamite, Nobel was also a businessman, poet and linguist who spoke Russian, French, English German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories mirror the interests closest to his heart.
Nobel spent much of his career developing weapons technologies and amassed a fortune doing so, but late in life he became a close friend of the Austrian peace activist Bertha von Suttner. She went on to become the first woman to win the peace prize in 1905, and many believe her influence persuaded Nobel to include an award in that category.
Nobel died in 1896, but a legal battle over his will delayed the first prizes until 1901. This year’s laureates will be named 125 years after those inaugural awards.
Who Awards the Nobel Prizes?
Nobel personally selected the institutions responsible for each award: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for literature, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university for physiology or medicine, and the Norwegian parliament for peace.
Exactly why Nobel chose Norway to hand out the peace prize is unknown, though it may reflect the political union linking Norway and Sweden at the time he penned his will.
In 1968, as Sweden’s central bank celebrated its 300th anniversary, it established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with a donation to the Nobel Foundation. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences according to the same principles as the other prizes.
Famous and Infamous Laureates
Notable laureates include physicists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, authors Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus, and leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa.
The Curies stand out as the most successful “Nobel Prize family,” with Marie Curie winning twice and her husband, daughter and son-in-law also among the laureates.
Only five people have won multiple Nobel Prizes, with American chemist and peace activist Linus Pauling the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes.
Some awards have aged poorly. Egas Moniz’s 1949 medicine prize honored the practice of lobotomy, which has since been discredited. Many peace prizes have drawn criticism as well, including those awarded to Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. The failure to award Mahatma Gandhi before his death in 1948 is widely seen as a great oversight.
The Festivities
The Nobel Prizes are presented to the laureates on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The peace prize is handed out by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, while the other prizes are presented by the Swedish king at the Stockholm Concert Hall. For the laureates about to be named, those December ceremonies will close out a Nobel season that opens with Monday’s announcement.
In the evening, some 1,300 guests are treated to a lavish banquet at Stockholm City Hall. The menu — meticulously planned for months by some of Sweden’s best chefs and sommeliers — is kept secret until the food is served by 200 waiters.
The cuisine follows a Nordic theme. Last year’s menu featured porcini mushroom soup, turbot stuffed with scallops and sugar kelp, and blackthorn berry sorbet with baked fresh cheese cream and browned butter sponge.
($1 = 9.9578 Swedish crowns)
— Reuters
