2026 Nobel Awards Spotlight Gender Gap in Science Prizes

On 9 October, Navanethem “Navi” Pillay received the Nobel Peace Prize and Anne Carson was named Nobel laureate in Literature, but the science categories—chemistry, physics, economics, and physiology or medicine—were all awarded to men. The Nobel website highlighted the modest number of female literature laureates (19 of 119) while giving little prominence to women in the scientific fields. Since 2019, only seven women have won science Nobel Prizes, and four of those years saw no female laureates at all.

Committee representatives expressed concern over the imbalance and pointed to steps taken since 2018, such as urging nominators to consider gender, geography and topic diversity and permitting multiple discovery nominations. The pool of eligible nominators now includes about 40% women, a positive shift, but the limited nomination base—restricted to past laureates, certain university professors, academy members and committee members—still hampers rapid change.

Proposals include expanding outreach to more global institutions and learning from newer awards that focus on under-represented researchers. Enhancing diversity is seen as essential for the credibility of science and the prestige of the Nobel awards.