The annual Nobel Prizes must “stand up” for scientific learning and free inquiry in an age when both are under growing threat, the new head of the foundation that oversees the honours has warned.
The 124-year old awards’ task was ever more crucial because the spread of disinformation was undermining knowledge acquired by research, said Hanna Stjärne, Nobel Foundation executive director.
While Stjärne did not criticise President Donald Trump’s administration directly, her remarks come in the context of a widening US official crackdown on leading research agencies, with Washington cutting funding and suppressing some areas of inquiry.
“Our mission will always be to stand up for knowledge, and to stand up for the profound work that scientists do,” Stjärne said in an interview in her office in Stockholm, where a portrait of Alfred Nobel’s mother Andriette hangs beside her desk. “This task is even more important than it used to be, because in turbulent times people are seeking hope.”
The Nobel Prizes have long been on Trump’s radar. He has expressed frustration that he has not won the peace prize, but his predecessor Barack Obama did.
Trump said in February he deserved the honour for his work on ending the war in Gaza, but added that he believed the awards committee would never give it to him. National security adviser Mike Waltz separately predicted his boss would win it, including for his efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.
Asked whether she feared a new transatlantic row if Trump did not scoop the award when it is announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in October, Stjärne said: “There are so many people that want the Nobel Prizes. If you would look in my mailbox, you would find suggestions — a lot of suggestions — every day.”
The wider Nobel Prizes are likely to be even more closely watched than usual this year because of their potential to be seen as a commentary on contemporary political trends.
A US movement called “Stand Up for Science” is protesting against the planned funding cuts and reports of ideologically-driven curbs on research in areas such as diversity, climate change and vaccines. Trump has picked vaccine-sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr to be health secretary.
The Nobel Foundation has a duty to “safeguard knowledge” and fight the “fast spread” of scientific disinformation that unfairly undermines research findings, said Stjärne, a former journalist and media executive who took office in January.
The prizes founded by dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel must embody “freedom of thought” and the “ability for scientists to work freely without restrictions,” she added.
The Nobel Prizes for medicine or physiology, physics and chemistry account for half the awards each year, with the others given for economics, literature and peace.
Past science recipients include the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, Marie Curie — the first-ever double Nobel winner — and Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered the life-saving antibiotic penicillin.
Stjärne, the Nobel Foundation’s first female executive director, acknowledged criticisms of the three science awards for their lack of diversity. All seven of last year’s winners were men, while women account for just 26 of the more than 600 laureates named since the first awards in 1901.
The committees that award the science honours were “really aware of this criticism” and in an “ongoing discussion” about how to respond to it, Stjärne said.
The prizes were often given for work done many years ago, when science was even more male-dominated than now, she added.
Each Nobel award is decided by a special committee, with most of the prize nominations invited from thousands of researchers and others.
Nobel Peace Prize nominations can be made only by people who meet certain criteria, such as membership of national governments or legislatures. The prize committee has said it received 338 nominations for this year’s award by the January 31 deadline, although the names are kept confidential.
