Nobel prize sum raised to $1.27m for 2026
The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901, when the prize sum was 150,782 kroner per discipline.PHOTO: PIXABAY
This year's Nobel Prize winners, to be announced from October 5-12, will receive 12 million kroner ($1.27m) per discipline, up from 11m in 2025, the Nobel Foundation said on Friday.
The hike is equivalent to around $106,000 or 9 per cent more and the sum is shared if there is more than one laureate in any of the six prize categories.
"This year, we are celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Nobel Prize, and in connection with this, we are pleased to be able to increase the prize amount by one million (kroner)," the director of the Nobel Foundation, Hanna Stjarne, said in a statement.
"By increasing the prize amount, we uphold the long-term significance of the Nobel Prize and ensure that the financial part of the prize retains its value over time," she said.
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The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901, when the prize sum was 150,782 kroner per discipline.
The medicine prize will kick off this year's Nobel week on October 5, followed each day by the prizes for physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The economics prize will wrap up the announcements on October 12.
Winners of this year's prizes in physics, chemistry, peacemaking, literature, economics and medicine or physiology will be announced between October 5 and October 12, marking the 125th anniversary of the first awards.
Established by the will of Swedish 19th-century businessman Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the first awards in 1901 were for 150,782 crowns per category, according to the foundation.