Nobel Prize 2026 winners: the full list

Science · By SpikeToday · Sep 29, 2026, 10:40 UTC · Updated Oct 12, 2026, 09:55 UTC

All six 2026 Nobel Prizes have now been announced, from Monday 5 October to Monday 12 October. Here is the full list of laureates.

The 2026 winners, prize by prize

Economic Sciences (12 October): Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel goes jointly, with a half share each, to Robert E. Hall (born 1943 in Palo Alto, California; Stanford University) and Michael Woodford (born 1955 in Chicopee, Massachusetts; Columbia University) "for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation" (NobelPrize.org).

In the 1970s oil crises, the economic models then used to time interest-rate and budget decisions seemed to stop working. Hall and Woodford helped rebuild them on the behaviour of individual households and businesses, which look ahead when they decide how much to save or what prices to set. That means what governments and central banks say about their future plans can itself steer the economy. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says these models are now used by central banks and governments around the world (press release).

Peace (9 October): Navi Pillay

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay "for her efforts to promote peace and international law". She wins the whole prize (NobelPrize.org).

Pillay was born into a family of Indian Tamil origin in Durban, South Africa, under apartheid. As a lawyer she defended Nelson Mandela and others who opposed apartheid. She went on to serve as a judge on South Africa's High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, and as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Until recently she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and she now sits as a judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide. The committee said she "has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted" (Norwegian Nobel Committee press release).

Literature (8 October): Anne Carson

The prize goes to the Canadian author Anne Carson "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature". Carson was born on 21 June 1950 in Toronto, Canada, and writes in English. She wins the whole prize (NobelPrize.org, facts).

Chemistry (7 October): Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai

The prize goes jointly to Henri B. Kagan (born 1930, professor emeritus at the former Université Paris-Sud, France) and Kenso Soai (born 1950, professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan) "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis".

Many molecules, such as amino acids, come in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and right hands. Living things use only one of the two, and for over a century chemists wondered how that could have arisen. In a test tube, ordinary reactions give both forms in equal amounts. In 1986, Kagan found a new way of steering reactions that produced more of one mirror image than had been thought possible. In 1995, Soai described a reaction with the potential to make only one form, and in 2003 he showed a reaction in which just one of the two mirror images was formed. The work matters for making medicines, where usually only one mirror image works as intended (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences). The prize money is shared equally.

Physics (6 October): Francis Halzen

Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, born in Tienen, Belgium, in 1944, wins the whole prize "for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin".

Neutrinos are tiny particles that pass through the Earth, and through us, almost without a trace. Halzen proposed in 1988 to catch them in the clear ice at the South Pole: on the rare occasions a neutrino hits an atom there, it gives off a flash of light. IceCube, finished in 2011, fills a cubic kilometre of ice with light sensors. It found high-energy neutrinos coming from far outside the solar system, opening a new way to study the most violent places in the universe (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).

Physiology or Medicine (5 October): Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel

The prize goes jointly to Karl Deisseroth (Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University, USA), Peter Hegemann (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) and Georg Nagel (University of Würzburg, Germany) "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics".

In the early 2000s, Hegemann and Nagel found channelrhodopsin, a protein that lets a single-celled alga swim towards light. When blue light hits it, a channel opens and an electrical signal starts. In 2005, Deisseroth put the gene for this protein into nerve cells and switched them on with light; two years later he did it in the brains of living mice. The method, called optogenetics, lets researchers see which brain circuits drive memories, feelings and behaviour, and it is being tested in attempts to restore sight (Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet). The three share the prize money equally.

Each prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor this year, about $1.21 million. That is up from 11 million in 2025, to mark the prize's 125th anniversary (Nobel Prize, AFP). When a prize has more than one winner, the money is shared.

When each prize was announced

These are the official times from the Nobel Foundation. Sweden and Norway are on summer time (CEST, UTC+2) that week. Every time is "at the earliest" except the Peace Prize, which has a fixed start.

In local time, the announcements fall between 5 and 7 a.m. in New York, 10 a.m. and noon in London and Lagos, noon and 2 p.m. in Cairo and Riyadh, 2 and 4 p.m. in Karachi, 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. in New Delhi, and 4 and 6 p.m. in Jakarta. Each one is streamed live on nobelprize.org and the Nobel Prize YouTube channel.

Who was tipped before the announcements

Nobody outside the prize committees knows who is on their shortlists, and nominations stay secret for 50 years. The names below were predictions by outside experts, not leaks. Of the science and economics picks below, only Michael Woodford won.

For the science and economics prizes, the most-watched list comes from the data company Clarivate, which names "Citation Laureates" from the most-cited research. It says 89 of its picks have gone on to win a Nobel, often years later, and it does not claim to predict any single year. Its 2026 list includes:

• Medicine: Daniel Drucker, Jens Juul Holst and Svetlana Mojsov, for discovering and studying GLP-1, the hormone behind today's diabetes and weight-loss drugs. James Fujimoto, David Huang and Eric Swanson are also listed, for inventing the OCT eye scan.
• Physics: Chihaya Adachi, Stephen Forrest and Mark Thompson, for work that made OLED screens far more efficient.
• Chemistry: David Liu, for base editing and prime editing, two ways to make precise changes to DNA.
• Economics: Susan Athey and Hal Varian, for the economics of technology, and Michael Woodford, for monetary policy.

Literature has no data-based list, and the Swedish Academy's choice is famously hard to call.

The Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee received 287 nominations this year, 208 people and 79 organisations (Reuters via Rappler). The leaders of Cambodia, Israel and Pakistan have said they nominated Donald Trump. The committee does not confirm names.

The Peace Research Institute Oslo publishes its director's own shortlist every year. The 2026 list, updated on 22 September, names:

• Mykola Kuleba of Save Ukraine, together with Save the Children, for protecting children in war
• Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, volunteer groups that run community kitchens and aid in the war
• the Committee to Protect Journalists
• the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court
• the International Space Station partnership, as an example of rivals working together

Last year's winners

• Medicine: Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi, for how the immune system is kept from attacking the body
• Physics: John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis, for quantum effects in an electric circuit
• Chemistry: Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi, for metal-organic frameworks
• Literature: László Krasznahorkai
• Peace: María Corina Machado
• Economics: Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, for explaining growth driven by innovation

Source: NobelPrize.org. This year's winners are listed at the top of this page.