Nobel Prize Award Ceremony Day

What Is Nobel Prize Award Ceremony Day?

December 10 is the day of the Nobel Prize award ceremonies. They fall on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist and industrialist, who died on December 10, 1896. The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Economic Sciences are presented by the King of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall, while the Peace Prize alone is presented at Oslo City Hall. In Stockholm, a banquet at the City Hall follows the ceremony.

How the Prize Works

• Prize money: 11 million Swedish kronor per prize in 2025, shared when there is more than one laureate
• Timing: laureates are announced each October; the ceremony is always December 10
• Eligibility: living individuals only; organizations are eligible for the Peace Prize alone, and posthumous awards are not normally made
• Selection: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for Physics and Chemistry, the Karolinska Institute for Physiology or Medicine, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee for Peace

The 2025 Ceremony and Japan

In 2025, Shimon Sakaguchi, specially appointed professor at Osaka University, received the Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of peripheral immune tolerance, and Susumu Kitagawa, distinguished professor at Kyoto University, received the Prize in Chemistry for the development of metal-organic frameworks. It was the first year since 2015 in which Japanese-born laureates were honored in more than one field. That brings the number of Japanese-born laureates in the natural sciences to 27, including those holding foreign citizenship. Both men spent decades on basic research with no immediate application, and both used the occasion to argue for stronger support of it.

Japanese-Born Laureates

As of 2025, Japan has produced 31 individual laureates and one organization, counting four who held foreign citizenship at the time of the award.

• Physics: Hideki Yukawa, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Leo Esaki, Masatoshi Koshiba, Yoichiro Nambu, Takaaki Kajita, Syukuro Manabe and others
• Chemistry: Kenichi Fukui, Hideki Shirakawa, Ryoji Noyori, Koichi Tanaka, Osamu Shimomura, Akira Suzuki, Ei-ichi Negishi, Akira Yoshino, Susumu Kitagawa (2025) and others
• Physiology or Medicine: Susumu Tonegawa, Shinya Yamanaka, Satoshi Omura, Yoshinori Ohsumi, Tasuku Honjo, Shimon Sakaguchi (2025) and others
• Literature and Peace: Yasunari Kawabata, Kenzaburo Oe, Kazuo Ishiguro (British citizen), Eisaku Sato, and Nihon Hidankyo (2024)

Tips for Marking This Day

• Watch the ceremony broadcast, or an archived Nobel lecture, on the Nobel Foundation's site
• Read a university or research institute explainer on what problem this year's work set out to solve
• Go back to the October announcements you saved and put the story in order
• Write down one thing in your own work that yields nothing yet but is worth continuing

From October's News to December's Stage

Researchers whose names first reached the news in October line up in white tie and evening gowns on December 10. Decades of unglamorous work finally take a visible shape on this one day.