Nobel Prize 2025: Decoding nomination process, selection criteria, & reward

Nobel Prize 2025: Nominators are required to submit a detailed written proposal highlighting the candidate's achievements, while self-nomination leads to automatic disqualification

The Nobel Prize winners for 2025 will be announced from October 6 to 13. The awards, among the world’s most prestigious honours, recognise excellence in six categories: physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economic sciences.

 

The peace prize was initially defined as being awarded “to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses”.

 

In 1968, a sixth prize was added in the field of economic sciences. Although not one of the original Nobel Prizes, it is officially called 'The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel'.

 

How does one get nominated for Nobel Prize? 

- The selection committees for each award send out nomination forms to 'qualified nominators' in early autumn of the preceding year.

 

- Each year, the prize-awarding institutions invite more than 6,000 individuals worldwide to propose candidates for the award. About 1,000 people typically submit nominations for each prize, with the number of nominees usually ranging from 100 to 250.

 

- Those eligible to nominate include past Nobel laureates, members of the prize-awarding institutions, academics active in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics, physiology or medicine, and officials and members of various universities and learned academies.

 

- Nominators must provide a detailed written proposal outlining the candidate’s achievements. Self-nomination automatically disqualifies an applicant.

 

- The deadline for nominations this year was January 31, a date that remains standard in most years. Late nominations are generally considered for the following year’s prize.

 

Trump’s quest for Nobel Peace Prize

 

Since 2018, US President Donald Trump has been put forward for the peace prize on several occasions by nominators from the United States and other countries. A Republican congresswoman submitted his name again in December, citing his work on the Abraham Accords that led to normalised relations between Israel and some Arab states. 

 

Nobel Prize money, medal 

Each Nobel Prize carries an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (nearly $1.2 million). Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma. The prize money can be shared by up to three laureates for a single category.

 

Royal ceremony in Stockholm

 

At the award ceremony in Stockholm, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden will present each laureate with the diploma and medal.