By Tareq Yousef AlShumaimry
Former Secretary-General of the Commercial Arbitration Centre of the Gulf Cooperation Council
The Nobel Prize is a set of prestigious international awards given annually since 1901 for outstanding achievements in various fields. Established by Swedish inventor (of dynamite) and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, who left a large portion of his fortune to establish the prizes. The prizes are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and, since 1968, Economic Sciences.
The Nobel Prize categories are
1. Nobel Prize in Physics – awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
2. Nobel Prize in Chemistry – awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
3. Nobel Prize in Medicine – awarded by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
4. Nobel Prize in Literature – awarded by the Swedish Academy.
5. Nobel Prize in Peace – awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee (in Oslo, Norway).
6. Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences – added in 1968 and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The prizes are announced annually in October and awarded on December 10 of the same year (the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death) in Stockholm, Sweden, with the exception of the Peace Prize, which is awarded in Oslo.
The prize consists of a gold medal and a monetary award (the value of which varies annually, and has reached approximately $1 million in recent years). The prize may be awarded to a maximum of three people in each category. The Peace Prize may be awarded to individuals or organizations (such as the United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross). The Nobel Prize is considered one of the world’s most prestigious honors, and prizes (especially those for literature and peace) often spark controversy over the selection of winners.
