How to Win a Nobel Prize

Once a year, various prestigious institutions around the world decide who is the best and brightest in their field. If you're a chemist, a physicist, a writer, an economist, a doctor or a peace-maker, it could be you. That is, if you've done something really great and members of the Swedish Academy think you deserve their coveted award ... The Nobel Prize.

How does it happen year after year?

Well, it all began in 1895 with a will and a stick of dynamite -- rather, the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel. When he died of a cerebral hemorrhage, he left a will requesting that his money be invested in a securities fund and that interest on that fund be given out annually as prizes to "those, who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." Those prizes, he said, should be divided into five categories: one for a physicist, one for a chemist, one for an innovator in physiology or medicine, one for a leader who had done the most to establish peace between nations and "one ... to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." (The Bank of Sweden established an award for economics in 1968.)

Nobel gave various Scandinavian institutions the charge of awarding the prizes: the Swedish Academy of Sciences was to be responsible for the physics and chemistry winners; the Caroline Institute in Stockholm was to designate the physiological and medical awards; the Norwegian Storting was to present the peace prize and the Swedish Academy in Stockholm was to award the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nationality of candidates was not to be considered in the selection process, according to Nobel's will.

Use of the word "he" and not "she," however, could indicate that Nobel either consciously or unconsciously expected winners to be males. Only 33 have won the award since its inception.

To win you have to be noticed. To be noticed, you have to submit a proposal. To submit a proposal, you have to be qualified. To be qualified, you have to be a previous winner, a professor in the prize's subject, a member of the Swedish Academy or president of an affiliated society, among other requirements. You cannot nominate yourself.

If you've made it to the nomination process, then you have no real control over the outcome. The committee in your field narrows its pool down to several hundred worthy nominees and passes their list onto the Nobel Committee, which is elected from within the Swedish Academy. They choose the winner by secret ballots placed in a traditional silver drinking mug. The votes are counted, the winners are called and the party begins.

What do you get besides worldwide recognition and a feature on National Public Radio? You get a medal, a diploma and 10,000,000 Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million (in 2006). Not bad.

Source cited: www.nobelprize.org