The Nobel Prizes 2025 have officially kicked off with the first award for physiology or medicine announced, setting the stage for a week of global anticipation.
Scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi on Monday were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for “their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance”.
“Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” the prize-awarding body said in a statement.
The full schedule, spanning through October 13, maps out a rapid succession of announcements: medicine, followed by physics, chemistry, literature, peace and finally the economics prize.
Here are details of the schedule and what to expect from this year’s Nobel Prizes:
What is the Nobel Prize?
The Nobel Prizes are the most prestigious international awards, established by the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist best known for discovering dynamite.
In his 1895 will, Nobel left the bulk of his fortune to fund the annual prizes, recognising those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in the preceding year.
The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901 for outstanding achievement in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace.
In 1968, Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, expanding the categories to six.
Who awards the Nobel Prizes, and how much is the prize money?
The prizes are awarded by different institutions: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (for physics, chemistry and economics), the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet (for medicine), the Swedish Academy (for literature) and the Norwegian Nobel Committee (for peace).
Each laureate receives a gold medal, a diploma and a cash award funded by the Nobel Foundation, which manages Nobel’s endowment. This year’s prizes amount to 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.2m) each.
The prizes are formally presented on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.
What is this year’s Nobel Prizes schedule?
The announcements began on Monday and will end a week later on October 13.
Monday, October 6: physiology or medicine
Announced by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Wallenbergsalen, Nobel Forum, Solna, near Stockholm
Tuesday, October 7: physics
Announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
Wednesday, October 8: chemistry
Announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
Thursday, October 9: literature
Announced by the Swedish Academy, Stockholm
Friday, October 10: peace
Announced at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, by the chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Monday, October 13: economics
Announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
How is a person nominated for the prize?
The nomination process is designed to preserve secrecy and independence. Each year, the Nobel committees invite selected experts, past winners and academics to submit nominations by January 31.
The nominations are not made public, and committee members are forbidden from discussing their decisions for 50 years. Only nominators may choose to reveal their own submissions.
A person cannot nominate themselves, but they can be nominated multiple times by others.
After the deadline, committees spend months reviewing hundreds of entries, consulting specialists and narrowing the list to a few candidates.
Each prize has its own rhythm. The Peace Prize, which often recognises work from the past year, tends to be responsive to current global events.
The science prizes usually take decades to confirm after judges observe that discoveries have stood the test of time and can gauge their impact.
Why is the Nobel Peace Prize being watched closely this year?
The world is fraught with conflict, including an ongoing genocide in Gaza, a war in Ukraine, and civil wars and political repression in numerous countries.
However, the headlines and debates about this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are rather outsized and focused on United States President Donald Trump for his relentless self-promotion – at times, claiming to deserve it for “ending seven wars”.
At the United Nations, Trump told delegates, “Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.” On Tuesday, Trump reiterated that he “deserved” to win the prize for the possibility of ending an eighth war, Israel’s two-year-long war on Gaza.
However, experts have noted that his chances are slim. The Norwegian Nobel Committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals, experts argued.
Among this year’s nominations for Trump were those from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Pakistan’s government although both were made after the deadline for the 2025 award.
One of the Nobel-awarding bodies has also warned that academic freedom is under threat from the political interference by the Trump administration.
Ylva Engstrom, vice president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the Trump administration’s changes were reckless. “I think in both the short and long term, it can have devastating effects,” she told the Reuters news agency in an interview. “Academic freedom … is one of the pillars of the democratic system.”
However, Engstrom is not herself on any of the three committees that will award the prizes for chemistry, physics or economics.
What happens at the Nobel Prize ceremony?
Every year, the Nobel Prizes are formally awarded in twin ceremonies held in Stockholm and Oslo.
The Stockholm ceremony is attended by Sweden’s royal family, and the laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economic sciences receive their medals and diplomas from the king.
In Oslo, the Nobel Peace Prize is presented by the chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at the Oslo City Hall, honouring Nobel’s wish that the Peace Prize be awarded in Norway.
Laureates are individually called to the stage, where they receive the Nobel medal, diploma and the monetary award. The ceremony also features speeches by committee chairpeople highlighting the significance of the discoveries and contributions.
The event is broadcast worldwide and followed by a Nobel Banquet at Stockholm’s City Hall for more than 1,000 guests, including royalty, diplomats, scientists and past laureates.
Who won these prizes last year?
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the 2024 prize for medicine for discovering microRNAs, tiny RNA molecules that regulate gene expression after transcription.
In physics, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton received the prize for research that laid the theoretical and computational foundations of modern machine learning and artificial neural networks. While Hopfield’s models in the 1980s linked neuroscience and computation, Hinton’s work revolutionised deep learning, enabling advances in image recognition, natural language processing and artificial intelligence systems.
In chemistry, the prize was shared by David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for breakthroughs in predicting and designing protein structures using computational models. Baker was honoured for developing algorithms that enable scientists to design new proteins with specific functions while Hassabis and Jumper from Google’s DeepMind were recognised for creating AlphaFold, the AI system that predicted nearly all known protein structures with unprecedented accuracy.
In the literature category, the prize went to Han Kang, a South Korean novelist known for her haunting explorations of violence, identity and collective memory. Best known internationally for the novels The Vegetarian and Human Acts, Han was cited “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
In the peace category, the prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations, honouring its decades-long campaign to abolish nuclear weapons and preserve the testimonies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.
In economic sciences, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson shared the prize for their analysis of how institutions shape long-term economic growth and inequality. Their collaborative research, including the seminal work Why Nations Fail, demonstrated that inclusive political and economic institutions rather than geography or culture determine prosperity.
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