As the Nobel Prizes for 2020 are upon us, the world awaits to see who will be added in the scientific and humanitarian Hall of Fame. In preparation, let us look back on the Nobel Prizes and their winners: their founding principles, their contribution to human history and, perhaps most importantly, their shortcomings over the past 120 years and what changes the future holds for them if they want to survive another 120.
Where did they come from, where did they go? Foundation, principles and awarding process
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who, after accumulating significant wealth through his numerous inventions, including dynamite, designated his inheritance to found the Nobel Prizes in perhaps the greatest self-promotion act of all time. These five prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics and Physiology or Medicine (with a sixth, the Memorial Prize in Economics, added in 1968) were to be awarded to “those who […] have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”, under the general condition that the laureate is still alive when being awarded.[1] And so the famous list has grown and continues to grow every year, with some of modern history’s most well-known discoveries, inventions, scientists, writers and activists joining the immortalised Nobel legacy.
To ensure the integrity of this legacy, the awarding process has been significantly globalised since 1901, when the first winners were announced. Approximately a year before the actual awards the worldwide expert community in each field sends in nominations, which are then assessed by four institutions in Norway and Sweden and by their corresponding prize committees.[2] This lengthy process ensures both the democratisation of the decision and also that the nomination stands the test of time, even in a relatively short span, and is not the result of a “hype” (e.g. discovering information on SARS-COVID-19).
The data doesn’t lie: the unfairness of the Nobel Prizes
While there is no doubt that great human endeavours and successes should receive credit and praise, the statistical analysis of years and years of Nobel Prizes and Winners delivers results about their heritage, race and gender that is disappointing, but sadly not surprising. More than three out of four laureates are based in the USA, the UK, Germany or France, although up to a third of people receiving the award in the name of these countries migrated there from other parts of the world.[3]
If there were a Bechdel test for awards, the Nobel Prizes would certainly fail, as there are only 53 female winners compared to 866 men, awarding mostly in Peace and Literature (average 12,8% of all laureates in the categories) and only 3% in science and economics.[4] It is hard not to be reminded of the announcement for the Economics Prize in 2019, where Prof Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee won as a couple and were commonly mentioned as “Prof. Banerjee and wife”.[5] Although the Nobel Prizes try to ring Marie Skłodowska Curie’s name enough times to distract from their gender bias, they omit that she is one of only five women to win the Prize in Chemistry since its foundation. This is not based on lack of nominations for women, since numerous great scientists, activists and authors have been nominated up to 50 times and yet never received recognition along with their male collaborators (e.g Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn). [6]
The awarding committee has been further criticised on their disregard of ethnic minorities and people of colour. Out of the 617 laureates in scientific categories, none is black, raising questions about the fairness of the winner selection process. As a response to these concerns, the academies introduced changes to their nomination procedure as of 2019 with the aim of promoting women and ethnic minorities in their nominations to ensure diversity and equality in the awarding process.[7][8] These modifications provided no change in 2019, where still only one woman and one person of colour were awarded, but there is hope that next week and the 2020 Nobel prizes might offer more inclusiveness for nominees around the world.
More work ahead: flawed logic and priceless potential
Although Alfred Nobel was, for lack of better words, noble in his intentions, dissatisfaction with the prizes is not a new concept.[9] Experts have been vocal about the distorted image the scientific prizes have created for research and how new discoveries are made for decades now. In their opinion, awarding two to three people for the accumulated effort of tens if not hundreds of people does not correspond with the teamwork that is familiar and characteristic to any big scientific discovery and, to quote immunologists Casadevall and Fang "epitomises the winner-takes-all economics of credit allocation and distorts the history of science by personalising discoveries that are truly made by groups of individuals”.[10] A typical exemplification of this misleading anachronism is that the average chemical paper has eight authors and the average physics paper has 40, while only a handful receive recognition with the Nobel Prize for the discovery.[11]
The most recommended solution is a rather simple one, derived from the Nobel Prizes themselves: since organisations such as the European Union and Amnesty International can receive the Nobel Peace Prize, why should group awards not be allowed in the other categories? This would ensure that credit would be given where it is due, it would present a more realistic impression of scientific work and honour the tradition and importance of cooperation in research, in contrast to the current image of a lone genius.
All the aforementioned changes, both the ones undertaken in 2019 and the ones still propose, do not aim to change the core of the Prizes – they more so aim to bring them back to Nobel’s original vision: to commonly recognise, bring awareness to and celebrate extraordinary work by members of our society. So, let us all sit back, relax and enjoy our equivalent of the Oscars.
May the best nominees win!
Author; Evangelia Nathanial, MSc by Research in Biochemistry.
References
[1] Alfred Nobel’s Will, The Nobel Prize Website, https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/
[2] Nobel Prizes: Selection Process, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nobel-Prize#/media/1/416856/18050
[3] The data behind the Nobel Prizes, https://www.chemistryworld.com/nobel-prize/the-data-behind-the-nobel-prizes/4010453.article
[4] Nobel Data Analysis and Modelling: An Advance Report, http://rstudio-pubs-static.s3.amazonaws.com/221359_4eee5b705d9144dab5f973051a0e2b40.html
[5] https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/indian-american-mit-prof-abhijit-banerjee-and-wife-wins-nobel-in-economics-119101400685_1.html
[6] Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction, https://www.nature.com/articles/143239a0
[7] What the Nobels are — and aren’t — doing to encourage diversity, 2018, Nature, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06879-z
[8] ‘More women are being nominated’: Nobel academy head discusses diversity, 2019, Nature, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02988-5
[9] The reward system needs overhauling, 1975, Nature, https://www.nature.com/articles/254277a0.pdf
[10] Is the Nobel Prize good for science?, 2013, The FASEB Journal, https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1096/fj.13-238758
[11] Paper authorship goes hyper, 2018, Nature Index, https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/paper-authorship-goes-hyper