Nobel Prize — Categories and Recent Global Winners
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The Nobel Prize, established through the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901, is presented annually in five original categories — Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace — with a sixth category, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (commonly called the "Nobel Prize in Economics" though it is technically a separate prize instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968, first awarded 1969), often grouped alongside the original five in current-affairs coverage.
Where each is decided and announced, a frequently tested structural fact: Physics, Chemistry, and Economic Sciences are decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Physiology or Medicine by the Karolinska Institute; Literature by the Swedish Academy; and — uniquely — the Peace Prize is decided by a Norwegian committee and awarded in Oslo, while every other category is awarded in Stockholm. This Oslo/Stockholm split traces back to Alfred Nobel's own will and is one of the single most-repeated "why is this different" Nobel facts across all competitive exams.
Memory hook — "Sweden's Academy for words, Karolinska for the body, Royal Academy for everything else": the Swedish Academy (a body more usually associated with literary/language matters) decides Literature; the Karolinska Institute (a medical university) decides Medicine; and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences picks up the remaining three science-and-economics categories — Physics, Chemistry, and Economic Sciences — leaving Oslo's separate Norwegian committee to handle Peace alone.
A few structural firsts and superlatives worth knowing across the Nobel Prize's history, since exams frequently test these independent of any single year's winners: the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901; Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (Physics, 1903, shared) and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (Physics, 1903; Chemistry, 1911); the International Committee of the Red Cross has won the Nobel Peace Prize three times, the most of any repeat laureate; and the prize is not awarded posthumously under the Nobel Foundation's statutes (with rare historical exceptions made only when a laureate died after the announcement but before the ceremony) — a detail worth contrasting directly against India's Bharat Ratna and gallantry awards, both of which are frequently and routinely given posthumously.
2025 Nobel Prize winners, as the most recent full cycle at the time of writing:
| Category | Laureate(s) | For |
|---|---|---|
| Physics | John Clarke, Michel Devoret, John Martinis | Discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit |
| Chemistry | Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, Omar M. Yaghi | Development of metal-organic frameworks |
| Physiology or Medicine | Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, Shimon Sakaguchi | Discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance |
| Literature | László Krasznahorkai | A compelling, visionary body of work reaffirming the power of art amid apocalyptic terror |
| Peace | Maria Corina Machado | Advocacy for democratic rights and a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela |
| Economic Sciences | Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt | Explaining innovation-driven, sustained economic growth |
Why 2025's Peace Prize is worth a second look: Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, received the award for her sustained pro-democracy advocacy — a reminder that the Peace Prize is frequently awarded for ongoing political/human-rights work rather than a single completed achievement, unlike the science categories, which are almost always awarded for a specific, dated discovery.
Memory hook — "Stockholm hosts five, Oslo hosts one": every Nobel category is decided and awarded in Sweden's capital except Peace, which sits in Norway's capital — a quirk written into Alfred Nobel's original will and never changed since.
A currency note: by the time you sit your exam, a new Nobel cycle (announced every October) may have already been declared. Treat the 2025 table above as your anchor point and specifically look up the most recent October's winners before your exam date — the category-to-city, category-to-deciding-body structural facts above will not have changed, but the names will.
Practice Recall: Name which Nobel category is decided by a Norwegian committee and awarded in a different city from all the others, and name that city (and the other cities/institutions for the remaining five categories).
Answer: Peace, decided by a Norwegian committee, awarded in Oslo. All other categories — Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Economic Sciences — are awarded in Stockholm, decided respectively by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Economics), the Karolinska Institute (Medicine), and the Swedish Academy (Literature).