what is the typical profile of a winner?

While the various Nobel Prizes are awarded from Monday, the scientific journal “Nature” analyzed the characteristics of each winner since 1901 to determine the profile of a winner of this prestigious prize.

Medicine kicks off the Nobel Prize on Monday October 7 in Stockholm. By reviewing the profile of the 646 laureates, corresponding to 346 Nobels since the creation of this prize which celebrates “The Benefactors of Humanity”the journal Nature (link in English) was able to draw up a typical profile of the winning scientist. Unsurprisingly, men are much more often rewarded and parity is far from being achieved since of the 646 winners, only 26 are women.

The latter console themselves a little by noting that more than half of these female Nobels have been awarded since the year 2000. Statistically, the lucky winner of the Nobel is rather a man of 54 years old, the most common age among the winners, but it often happens that he is older, because the average age is 58 years old.

Among his other characteristics, he is a researcher mainly based in North America, which accounts for half of the winners, while Europe comes in second place. Finally, he is a researcher who, in general, published innovative work around twenty years before receiving his reward. This means that he made most of his discoveries around the age of forty, knowing that Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. The oldest laureate so far is John Goodenough, who received a Nobel in chemistry with two other laureates in 2019 for the development of lithium-ion batteries, at the age of 97.

At the level of award ceremonies alone or in teams, if a scientist does not want to share his prize, it is better that he works in chemistry, since 55% of the prizes were awarded to a single winner. In medicine or physics, two thirds of the prizes are awarded to duos and trios. However, statistically solitary winners have become increasingly rare over the past 30 years.

Finally, if a scientist wants to win a Nobel, he or she had better work in the laboratory of a previous winner, because virtually all Nobel winners have an academic connection to another winner, through their university or research team.