Editorial: Staying skeptical during Nobel season

It’s Nobel Prize season—the time of year when scientists speculate who among them will receive one of the most coveted awards in research. This year, on Oct. 7–9, C&EN staff in the US will rise well before dawn to watch the live announcements, catch the energy of the day, and report on who won what and why.

But as we’ve prepared for the celebration this year, we’ve come to wonder: Do these awards adequately represent talent in the global chemistry enterprise?

Scientist and businessperson Alfred Nobel devised the Nobel Prizes in 1895 in his will as a way to recognize “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” with a monetary award. Today, that will still lays out the logistics of the awards.

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, 5 years after their eponym’s death. Since then, the world of science and chemistry has expanded and changed significantly. By contrast, the Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry have not.

Consider Nobel’s stipulation that, aside from the Peace Prize, no more than three people can share an award. This rule inherently overlooks the teams of individuals who may be doing the bulk of the work leading to breakthrough discoveries, many of which pass through dozens of hands before publication. Undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and research scientists all contribute their time and specific expertise to developing a project.

When an award does recognize multiple people, it often goes to principal investigators (PIs) running separate labs, not a PI and their protégés. In our current scientific age of interdisciplinary collaboration, lauding a scientific lone wolf (or three) feels antiquated.

Now consider the century-old Nobel laureate selection process: nominations are solicited from a select group of scientists, already considered leaders in their field. From those nominations, the Nobel committee selects the year’s laureates. Perhaps unsurprisingly, and similar to every gate-kept space, the Nobel laureates in chemistry don’t reflect the diversity of the people in the field. And because nominations are sealed for 50 years, there is no way to tell whether nominee demographics are changing.

Historically, prestigious awards have primarily gone to scientists from the US and Europe. Although such recognition suggests that these regions are producing the most high-impact science, that is not necessarily the case. Indigenous communities and scientists across the globe have made and continue to make important scientific contributions. Research today is global and collaborative—across cultures, in academic laboratories, government agencies, and industry. If the Nobels have any ambition to inspire today’s scientists, prizes cannot only go to researchers in privileged spaces.

As an example of inequity, only 8 women are among the 192 chemistry laureates. Research published in 2019 suggests that gender bias is to blame for the lack of female laureates. To paraphrase a 2019 interview in Science given by Liselotte Jauffred, one of the researchers who performed that study: by creating a small, elite group of White men in science, we might be missing a lot of interesting work.

The Nobel Foundation is limited by the wording and intentions of Nobel’s will. Journalists aren’t so constrained. Because the prizes are failing to represent the true diversity of 21st-century science, it might be time for media outlets to find another way to rejoice in scientific discovery. Nobel Prize stories should not become part of a harmful hype machine that catapults a handful of scientists to superstar status based on a 129-year-old set of criteria.

Nobel Prize winners are clearly newsworthy, but for our C&EN audience, we need to go beyond the hype, beyond the glitz, and remember that we are science journalists. As a newsroom, we are committed to not only skeptically and accurately assessing the Nobel news every October but also producing stories, such as the recent PhD-to-CEO story, that more accurately reflect the depth and diversity of research groups.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this week’s editorial, lead contributors are Laura Howes and Fionna Samuels.

Views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of ACS.