Under pandemic cloud, Nobel Prize ceremony to be held online this year

New Delhi, December 1

The Nobel Prize week this year will primarily be digital with laureates getting their medals and diplomas in their respective countries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Nobel Foundation official said on Tuesday.

The Nobel Laureates will receive their medals and diplomas on December 7 and 8 in ceremonial presentations in their countries which will be shown in the online prize award ceremonies from Oslo and Stockholm on December 10, the official said.

King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf will participate through a digital greeting in a ceremony at Golden Hall at the Stockholm City Hall on December 10 where the Nobel Foundation will pay tribute to this year’s laureates, Rebecka Oxelström, Head of Press, Nobel Foundation said.

“The ceremony will be framed by musical interludes. Stefan Forsberg, Executive and Artistic Director of Konserthuset Stockholm (Stockholm Concert Hall) will serve as master of ceremonies, with the performances directed by Linus Fellbom,” she said.

The famous Nobel Prize Concert at Konserthuset Stockholm (the Stockholm Concert Hall) will have no audience this year.

Performances of conductor Stéphane Denève who will lead the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the soloist pianist Igor Levit will be streamed live on YouTube channel of Nobel Prize and website HYPERLINK “http://nobelprize.org” nnobelprize.org.

The Nobel Prize amount for 2020 is set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 10.0 million per full Nobel Prize courtesy of a bequest left 124 years ago by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

Every year on December 10, on the death anniversary of Nobel, the coveted award ceremonies are held in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize followed by in Stockholm for the Prizes in-Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Physiology and Medicine and Economic Sciences.        

Physicists Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez will be honoured for unravelling mysteries of the Universe while Chemists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna will be awarded “for the development of a method for genome editing”.

Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice who discovered Hepatitis C virus will receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Nobel Prize in Literature will go to Louise Glück.

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel also commonly referred as the Nobel Prize in Economics will go to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson for developing novel auction formats.

The Nobel Peace Prize this year has been given to the World Food Programme (WFP). PTI