Nobel Prize announcements begin, with hopes of a 'less controversial year'

Monday sees the announcement of the medicine prize, which experts say could go to the scientists behind the development of the GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs – such as Ozempic – which have transformed obesity treatment.

In 2024, Svetlana Mojsov, Joel Habener, and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen received the prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for GLP-1-based therapies. The Lasker Awards are often considered predictors of future Nobel Prizes.

The physics prize will be announced on Tuesday and chemistry on Wednesday, with the economics prize wrapping up the awards on 13 October.

The Nobel Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for around $1.2 million, to be shared if there is more than one laureate in each discipline.

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Peace and pressure

The committee awarding the peace prize, to be announced on 9 October, was put under unprecedented pressure last year when United States President Donald Trump publicly declared he should receive it. 

He insisted that he "deserved the prize" because he had helped resolve seven international conflicts by negotiating ceasefires.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, later gave Trump her Nobel gold medal, judging he deserved it after the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

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"After last year's prize, maybe they're seeking a less controversial situation this year," the acting director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Haakon Gjerlow, told French news agency AFP.

Gjerlow said his pick would be a joint prize for Save the Children and Mykola Kuleba, a Ukrainian children's rights activist campaigning for the return of Ukrainian children illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.

Other contenders, according to Gjerlow, include Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, a vast network of volunteers who risk their lives to help people facing the double threat of war and hunger; the Committee to Protect Journalists, following the deadliest year on record for the profession in 2025 – and even the International Space Station.

Women in the spotlight

The literature prize, announced on 8 October, is awarded by the Swedish Academy and speculation in Sweden's literary circles over who will be named the winner is in full swing – fuelled by the fact that the list of nominees and the jury's deliberations are kept secret for 50 years.

After honouring Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai last year, according to literary critics surveyed by AFP the Swedish Academy could this time go for a female writer. 

"In this new wave it's women who are taking the lead, with writing often tinged with feminism, but also often quite dark and violent, punctuated by surreal touches," said Lina Kalmteg, literary critic at Swedish public radio network SR.

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Among the names circulating are Argentine author Samanta Schweblin, Antiguan-American author Jamaica Kincaid and Chinese writer Can Xue.

Only 68 of the 633 Nobel prizes awarded since 1901 have been given to women, although the share has been steadily increasing since the early 2020s.

(with AFP)