Nobel Insight.

The Nobel Prizes for 2023 have recently been announced, with one notable addition: The Memorial Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. It's essential to understand that this economic prize wasn't part of Alfred Nobel's original testament; instead, it was added by the Swedish State Bank in 1968. Nevertheless, it stands on equal footing with other Nobel Prizes in fields such as Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Literature, all awarded annually by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. Alfred Nobel, a polymath known for his contributions as a chemist, engineer, businessman, and philanthropist, was the inventor of dynamite and various other inventions. With no direct heirs, he bequeathed his substantial fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes, first awarded in 1901.

It's crucial to mention that the Nobel Peace Prize operates differently. This award, in alignment with Alfred Nobel's testament, is given by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, a city that was historically known as Kristiania and was in a union with Sweden from 1814 to 1905. The Norwegian and Swedish governments have no influence over these decisions. This fact is particularly significant when it comes to the Peace Prize, which is often the most politically charged of all the Nobel Prizes. The Literature Prize, too, can sometimes carry political connotations.

In assessing the Nobel Prizes, one may naturally question how neutral and unbiased these selections genuinely are. Criticism occasionally arises concerning the adherence to the statutes based on Alfred Nobel's will. In this article, we will shed light on the characteristics of the 2023 laureates. Notably, most of the laureates are European or American men. There are no laureates from Latin America, Oceania, or Sub-Saharan Africa this year. Two winners have North African backgrounds, specifically from Tunisia, but have spent most of their careers in France and the USA. Interestingly, two laureates have Hungarian ancestry; they were educated during the Soviet era but later relocated to the West.

While there's been progress in gender diversity among laureates, gender equality hasn't been fully achieved. This year, one of the two recipients of the Medicine Prize is a woman, Katalin Kariko (68), a Hungarian-American. In Physics, there's another female laureate, Anne L'Huillier (61), who is French-Swedish and based at Lund University in Sweden. She shares the prize with two male colleagues, becoming only the fifth woman...