2015 Nobel Prize Announcements

It's Nobel Prize week in Stockholm. As the world counts down to the awards and banquet on December 10, the 2015 Nobel laureates are in Stockholm meeting each other, visiting the Nobel Museum and giving press conferences and lectures on their work.  

  • Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator and armaments manufacturer was born on October 21 in 1833.
  • Swede Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament on November 27, 1895, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace - the Nobel Prizes. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was introduced in 1968.

  • The sum of the Nobel Prize was decreased from 10 million SEK ($1.4 million), to 8 million SEK ($1.1 million) in 2015 due to the rocky financial market.
  • Every year the Nobel Laureates are announced in October and formally awarded their prizes by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on December 10 at the Stockholm Concert Hall. The Nobel Prize amount for 2015 is set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 8 million per full Nobel Prize. The ceremony is followed by a banquet at the Stockholm City Hall (Stockholms Stadshus) for about 1,300 people.

  • Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was a Swedish author and the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
  • Three scientists, including one from the U.S., have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. They have discovered drugs for fighting malaria and other tropical diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people every year. "The discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually," the Nobel committee said. "The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immensurable." On October 5, the Nobel judges in Stockholm announced the prestigious prize to William Campbell, who was born in Ireland, received his doctorate at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1957 and became a U.S. citizen in 1962, the first-ever Chinese medicine laureate Tu Youyou, and Satoshi Omura of Japan. The three winners will share the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) prize money, and each will get a diploma and gold medal at the annual Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

  • First Nobel Peace Prize: Jean Henri Dunant (1828-1910) was a Swiss businessman and social activist. During a business trip in 1859, he was witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in modern day Italy. He recorded his memories and experiences in the book “A Memory of Solferino,” which inspired the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863. The 1864 Geneva Convention was based on Dunant's ideas.
  • The Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for their research into the mechanisms that cells use to repair DNA. Swede Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar, the first Turkish-born scientist to win a Nobel prize, have mapped and explained how the cell repairs its DNA and safeguards its genetic information. “Their systematic work has made a decisive contribution to the understanding of how the living cell functions, as well as providing knowledge about the molecular causes of several hereditary diseases and about mechanisms behind both cancer development and aging,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the prize, announced. The three scientists will receive an equal share of the prestigious 8 million Swedish kronor award ($960,000).

  • The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded each year to winners who made the most outstanding contributions for mankind in the field of physics. This year, Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur B. McDonald of Canada have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery that neutrinos, fundamental subatomic particles which make up the universe, change identities. The discovery has changed the understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe. Kajita and McDonald led two teams which made key observations of the particles inside big underground instruments in Japan and Canada. Goran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which decides on the award, declared on October 5: "This year's prize is about changes of identity among some of the most abundant inhabitants of the universe." The winners will share the SEK 8 million award ($960,000).

  • The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Belarusian journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich. Alexievich’s body of work, much of which is available in many languages, is a collection of "polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time." Through a unique interview process, she carefully composes collages of human voices in times of war, conflict and tragedy, deepening our understanding of human nature and entire eras of suffering she has witnessed. "I never accept the role of a judge, I am not a cool chronicler. My heart is always there. The question that worries me is how long we can walk this road of horror, how much a human being can bear. That's why the poetics of tragedy are important for me."

  • The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2015 is awarded to Angus Deaton "for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare." Deaton, who has dual citizenship in the UK where he was born and in the U.S. where he is a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey, has transformed the fields of microeconomics, macroeconomics and development economics in ways that promotes welfare and reduces poverty. His work is being honored for researching three central ideas: how consumers distribute their spending among different goods, how much of society's income is spent and how much is saved, and how we can best measure and analyze welfare and poverty.

  • Every year the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee according to guidelines laid down in Alfred Nobel’s will. Whereas the other prizes are awarded by specialist committees based in Sweden, the Peace Prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting and given to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Like the other Nobel prizes, the Peace Prize includes a medal, a diploma, and a large sum of prize money. And while the award ceremony is on Dec. 10 like the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.

  • The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize recipient was announced on Friday, Oct. 9. The winner, The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, has won for its "decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia." The quartet is a coalition of four key Tunisian organizations: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. They formed in the summer of 2012, establishing an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was in danger of collapsing under political assassinations and widespread social unrest. "The quartet paved the way for a peaceful dialogue between the citizens, the political parties and the authorities and helped to find consensus-based solutions to a wide range of challenges across political and religious divides," said Kaci Kullman Five, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.