The flaws of the awards, seen by the public as the only game in town, are hindering the pursuit of innovation
Martin Rees is the astronomer royal
Every October sees the award of the “scientific Oscars”: Nobel prizes. The science prizes established in Alfred Nobel’s will are for physics, chemistry and “physiology or medicine”. This year the three scientific Nobels went to a total of eight scientists – rewarded for sustained efforts to tackle fundamental challenges. There will be special acclaim for the Hungarian medical researcher, Katalin Karikó, who persevered, despite much discouragement from her university, on the groundwork that led to several Covid vaccines.
These three subjects are interpreted broadly, and their purview has shifted over time. But the prizes nonetheless still exclude huge tracts of science. Famously, mathematics has never been included. The environmental sciences – oceans and ecology – aren’t covered, nor are computing, robotics and artificial intelligence. These exclusions distort the public perception of what sciences are important.
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