Abstract
In this study we examined the institutions (and countries) the Nobel laureates of the three disciplines chemistry, physics and physiology/medicine were affiliated with (from 1994 to 2014) when they did the decisive research work. To be able to frame the results at that time point, we also looked at when the Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. and when they were awarded the Nobel Prize. We examined all 155 Nobel laureates of the last 21 years in physics, chemistry, and physiology/medicine. Results showed that the USA dominated as a country. Statistical analysis also revealed that only three institutions can boast a larger number of Nobelists at all three time points examined: UC Berkeley, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Researcher mobility analysis made clear that most of the Nobel laureates were mobile; either after having obtained their Ph.D./M.D. or after writing significant papers that were decisive for the Nobel Prize. Therefore, we distinguished different ways of mobility between countries and between institutions. In most cases, the researchers changed institutes/universities within one and the same country (in first position: the USA, followed, by far, by the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany).
Keywords: Nobel Prize, Decisive work, Researcher mobility, Landmark papers, Affiliations
Introduction
The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious and renowned research prize for outstanding contributions in physics, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, and it attracts widespread attention not only within but also outside the world of academia and science (www.nobelprize.org). Since research prizes in general (and the Nobel Prize specifically) can be used as indicators of research achievements, and as information on research prizes is usually well accessible, numerous scientometric studies investigating Nobel laureates have been conducted. For example, Zhou et al. (2014) examined 362 landmark papers written by Nobel laureates in physics from 1901 to 2012 using bibliometric methods (Journal Impact Factor, citations of landmark papers, country where the journal is published). In two recent studies, Chan et al. (2015a) and (b) looked at alterations of co-authors on the laureates’ publications, and Wagner et al. (2015) compared Nobel laureates with a matched group of scientists to examine productivity, impact, and research networks. In further studies, publications by Nobel laureates have been used, for example, to validate (newly suggested) bibliometric indicators (Antonakis and Lalive 2008; Aziz and Rozing 2013; Rodríguez-Navarro 2011a, b), to test the quality of Google Scholar as a source for citation data (Harzing 2013; Patel et al. 2013), to predict the awarding of Nobel Prizes (Ashton and Oppenheim 1978), to study the uncitedness of publications by reputable scientists (Egghe et al. 2011; Heneberg 2013), to determine the effect of the Nobel Prize on the citation impact of publications by a Nobel laureate (Frandsen and Nicolaisen 2013; Gingras and Wallace 2010; Mazloumian et al. 2011), and to investigate the relationship between the number of highly-cited papers and the awarding of the Nobel Prize (Chuang and Ho 2014; Laband and Majumdar 2012).
Previous studies not only examined Nobel Prizes and Nobel laureates using bibliometric methods, but also analyzed the event itself and the person as such from a sociology-of-science perspective. Becattini et al. (2014) studied the time delay between when a scientist makes a prize-winning discovery and is recognized for it with the Nobel Prize. They found that from the very beginning of the Nobel Prize awards, this lag time has continuously increased and Nobel Prize winners have become proportionally older and older at the time of their awards. On average, the lag time is almost twice as long in chemistry (9 years) and physiology/medicine (11 years) than in physics (5 years) (Chan and Torgler 2013). Before being awarded the Nobel Prize, most Nobel Prize winners received a striking number of other awards (Chan et al. 2014a, b) or were invited more frequently than other scientists to join scientific societies (Chan and Torgler 2012; Chan et al. 2016). In a series of studies, Campanario (1993, 1996, 2009) examined resistance in the Nobel laureates’ scientific communities to recognizing the later honored work (for example, a journal rejecting the paper on the later prize-winning work). Campanario’s studies clearly pointed out that rejections and resistance in the scientific community actually occurred. Stephan and Levin (1993), Jones and Weinberg (2011) looked at the age of Nobel Prize winners and examined the relationship between age and scientific productivity and creativity.
With this paper, we take up from one of the most important empirical studies in this area entitled “Scientific elite. Nobel laureates in the United States” by Zuckerman (1977). The author tracked all Nobel laureates in the USA awarded the prizes from 1901 to 1972. Zuckerman (1977) focused on the question, which social factors and social conditions “make” Nobel laureates. The author investigated their social development, educational background, collaboration with other authors, and the specialty of the prize-winning research. For this purpose, Zuckerman (1977) interpreted the data also on the basis of interviews with laureates (e.g. in order to explain the mobility of laureates who “moved” or “stayed”).
Zuckerman (1977) examined the prize-winning research, looking at US research institutions where the prize-winning work was done (see Zuckerman 1977, p. 170, table 6–3). Such research institutions are of special interest generally, because it is considered that they provide very good research conditions. A similar research approach was used by Ye et al. (2013), who analyzed the awards of 66 Nobel laureates in physiology/medicine during the period from 1983 to 2012. They reported one to at most four landmark papers describing the work decisive for Nobel Prizes. Furthermore, they listed the journal of the most cited work (see Ye et al. 2013, p. 536, Table 2). Knowing the institution with which the researcher is affiliated at the time of doing the decisive work is important, because many Nobel laureates were awarded the Nobel Prize many years after they did the prize-winning work, and because researchers tend to be mobile—that is, they often change research institutions.
Besides Zuckerman (1977), we take up from another important empirical study in the area of Nobel Prize analysis: Hillebrand (2002) undertook a biographical analysis of the Nobel laureates in physics from 1901 to 2000. In the analysis, he considered information about the Nobel laureates, e.g. age, teamwork or migration within countries. He focused on the laureates’ curriculum vitae, e.g. their social responsibilities. The author concluded that “success is made more likely by an early interest in science, a good education, hard work, mobility (on occasion), as well as a generous portion of luck” (Hillebrand 2002, p. 93).
In this study we examined the institutions the Nobel laureates of the three disciplines chemistry, physics and physiology/medicine were affiliated with (from 1994 to 2014) when they did the decisive research work. To be able to compare the results, we also identified the Nobel laureates’ institutional affiliations at the time point of their obtaining a Ph.D./M.D. and at the time point of their being awarded the Nobel Prize. In addition, we examined the Nobel laureates’ mobility across the three time points.
Methods
Sources
The names of all Nobel laureates and their institutional affiliations on the day of the Prize announcement were found on the Nobel Prize website, www.nobelprize.org. The website also provides a broad summary statement naming the research achievement or discovery for which the prize was awarded as well as information on whether the prize was awarded to one person or shared by two or three persons maximum. This summary statement was the most important and the only (official) indication of the honored research work/papers of the Nobel laureates.
In the three prize categories (physiology/medicine, chemistry, physics), 155 scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in the 21 years from 1994 to 2014. Compared to the prize categories physiology/medicine and chemistry, most prizes (55) were awarded in physics. There were 50 Nobel laureates each in physiology/medicine and chemistry.
None of the Nobel laureates examined here was awarded a second Nobel Prize, which has occurred only four times in the past. But we found differences in the categories with regard to whether the Nobel Prize was awarded to one person or shared by two or three persons: whereas in the period from 1994 to 2014 the Nobel Prize for physics was shared by two or three persons every year (without exception), the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to one person (unshared) five times (Georg A. Olah 1994, Ahmed H. Zewail 1999, Roger D. Kornberg 2006, Gerhard Ertl 2007, and Dan Shechtman 2011). In physiology/medicine, the prize was awarded to one person (unshared) three times (Stanley Prusiner 1997, Günter Blobel 1999, and Robert G. Edwards 2010).
In most cases, information on the date and place where the Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. was available in the Encyclopædia Britannica (see www.britannica.com). But the Britannica was mainly important as a reference work for information on the course of the Nobel laureates’ careers. The information summarized in Encyclopædia Britannica made it possible to narrow down the time frame in which the prize-winning work was done or to find out what the Nobel laureates’ major research achievement was. The Encyclopædia Britannica was the most important source of information next to the Nobel Prize website. However, as there are sometimes gaps in accounts of the Nobel laureates’ careers in the Encyclopædia Britannica, it made sense to also consult current university and institute web pages, which in most cases provide information on their Nobel laureates. In this way, information was obtained on the workplaces of all 155 Nobel laureates examined.
Determining the prize-winning work
There is no one decisive publication as such, which could clearly indicate the affiliation, where the laureate did his decisive work. The Nobel Committees did not name any relevant publications as official justification. However, the summary statement issued by the Committee (www.nobelprize.org), naming the research achievement or discovery for which a Nobel Prize was awarded, narrows down the topic of the prize-winning work.
Utilizing the Nobel Committee’s reason for which the prize was awarded and the information on a laureate’s career taken from the Encyclopædia Britannica, we identified the paper(s) in which the researcher described the prize-winning work. We searched for landmark papers of the laureates in literature databases such as Web of Science (WoS, Thomson Reuters) or Scopus (Elsevier), that—among other things—capture citation counts and the addresses of authors of publications (Scopus since 1996). To determine lacking publications about the prize-winning work, we searched for books via Google Scholar and used further databases (e.g. ProQuest or Wiley Online Library). For example, K. Tanaka’s (Nobel Prize 2002 in chemistry) prize-winning paper (Tanaka et al. 1988) was found neither in WoS nor in Scopus, but in Google Scholar.
In any case, we took the author’s institutional affiliation named in the paper as the institution where the researcher wrote the prize-winning publication. Almost always, not just one paper, but rather several papers on the same topic (up to five) came into question. Based on the one or several relevant publications, we then determined the institutions where the Nobel laureates were working when they gained the important research results.
A difficulty encountered in this search was that, in some cases, Nobel laureates published several papers on the relevant topic within the same year. In that case, we used further analysis methods. After searching WoS and Scopus for all publications by the correct author (established clearly by using initials, biography, etc.), we examined the content of the most highly cited papers more closely by reading the abstract and, when necessary, checking the full text as well.
Results
The characterization of the prize-winning publication(s)
As to the document type of publication, we found that in most cases (about 95 %), the prize-winning work was published in the form of an ‘article,’ which is the most relevant document type in the natural sciences. Occasionally, we found signed letters as a document type for the prize-winning work of F. Englert, (Nobel Prize 2013 in physics) in Englert and Brout (1964), for the laureate’s work of H. Kroemer (Nobel Prize in physics 2000) in Kroemer (1963) and for the prize-winning work of P. Mansfield (Nobel Prize 2003 in physiology/medicine) in Mansfield (1977). In addition, we found two book chapters by J. O’Kneefe (Nobel Prize 2014 in physiology/medicine) in O’Keefe and Nadel (1978) and by G. Blobel (Nobel Prize 1999 in physiology/medicine) in Blobel and Sabatini (1971). Two further papers were published as a meeting abstract—R. F. Furchgott (Nobel Prize 1998 in physiology/medicine) in Furchgott et al. (1987)—and as note—P. A. Grünberg (Nobel Prize 2007 in physics) in Binasch et al. (1989). In physics, at least one researcher, J. Kilby, was awarded the Nobel Prize, who applied in 1959 for a patent using his work on the invention of the world’s first integrated circuit (IC) chip (Kilby 1959, Patentnumber:US3072832). He worked at Texas Instruments Inc. (Bell liscensee) in Dallas (TX) as an employee from 1958 to 1970.
The results show that in addition to publications in renowned scientific journals like Nature, Science, Cell and Physical Review Letters, less well-known journals also helped the way to the Nobel Prize. For example, we found a non-English publication (in French) of Y. Chauvin (Nobel Prize 2005 in chemistry) in Herisson and Chauvin (1971).
Regarding the content of the prize-winning work of all 155 Nobel laureates, we defined three categories: (1) development of methods, e.g. useful in medical diagnosis or chemical synthesis, (2) discoveries of natural mechanism and phenomena, and (3) making mature products. In our analysis, medicine leads with 18 discoveries of natural mechanism (85.7 %), followed by physics with 15 (71.4 %) and chemistry with 10 (47.6 %). In contrast, chemistry ranks first with nine methodical prize-winning works (42.9 %), followed by physics with seven (33.4 %) and physiology/medicine with three (14.3 %). The definition of a mature product is an industrial product development, like the invention of LED-lights (Nobel Prize in physics 2014, Nakamura, Amano and Akasaki) and “for basic work on information and communication technology” (Nobel Prize in physics 2000, Kroemer, Zhores, Kilby). Mature products were seldom described in decisive publications; only chemistry and physics hold two prize-winning works (both 9.5 %), physiology/medicine has none.
A peculiarity in the awarding of the Nobel Prize during the examined time period in both physics and chemistry was of interest: Six scientists with a university degree but without a Ph.D. or M.D. were awarded a Nobel Prize: Koichi Tanaka (Nobel Prize in chemistry 2002), Yves Chauvin (Nobel Prize in chemistry 2005), Barry Marshall and Robin Warren (Nobel Prizes in physiology/medicine 2005), Jack Kilby (Nobel Prize in physics 2000), and Shuji Nakamura (Nobel Prize in physics 2014).
Institutions with which the Nobel laureates were affiliated
Table 1 lists the institutions at which Nobel laureates of the last 21 years obtained their Ph.D./M.D., at which they made their prize-winning discovery, and with which they were affiliated at the time of the Nobel Prize award. In order to see whether the institutions listed in the table are also top-rated institutions in university rankings, we included the ranking positions provided by Claassen (2015, Fig. 2, p. 800). Claassen (2015) presents a meta-ranking of universities which is based on major university rankings. The comparison shows that—with the exception of the Nagoya University—ranking positions below 30 are more frequently among the institutions where the Ph.D./M.D. was obtained than among the institutions where the prize-winning work was done or the Nobel Prize awarded.
Table 1.
Career stage | Institution | Number of scientists | Ranking results (Claassen 2015) |
---|---|---|---|
Ph.D./M.D. obtained | Harvard University, USA | 14 | 1 |
Gini = 0.24** | University of California, Berkeley, USA | 8 | 5 |
MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA | 6 | 2 | |
University of Cambridge, U.K | 5 | 4 | |
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan | 5 | 152 | |
University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K | 5 | 6 | |
Yale University, New Haven, USA | 5 | 11 | |
Columbia University, New York, USA | 4 | 8 | |
Cornell University, Ithaka, USA | 4 | 13 | |
Stanford University, Stanford, USA | 4 | 3 | |
New York University, New York, USA | 3 | 28 | |
John Hopkins, Baltimore, USA | 3 | 15 | |
Did the prize-winning work | Cambridge University, U.K | 8 | 4 |
Gini = 0.17** | University of California, Berkeley, USA | 6 | 5 |
AT&T, Bell Labs, Murray Hill, USA | 6 | Not included | |
MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA | 3 | 2 | |
Rockefeller University, New York, USA | 4 | 42 | |
Harvard University, USA | 4 | 1 | |
Univ. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | 3 | 14 | |
Technion—Israel, Haifa, Israel | 3 | 148 | |
Cornell University, Ithaka, USA | 3 | 13 | |
Rice University Houston | 3 | 91 | |
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan | 3 | 30 | |
University of Colorado, Boulder, USA | 3 | 44 | |
Yale University, USA | 3 | 11 | |
University of Columbia, New York, USA | 3 | 8 | |
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan | 3 | 152 | |
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | 3 | Not included | |
Nobel Prize awarded | Stanford University, Stanford, USA | 10 | 3 |
Gini = 0.19** | MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA | 6 | 2 |
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA | 5 | 37 | |
University of California, Berkeley, USA | 4 | 5 | |
Max-Planck-Society, Germany | 4 | Not included | |
Columbia University, New York, USA | 4 | 8 | |
Rockefeller University, New York, USA | 4 | 42 | |
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | 4 | Not included | |
University of Colorado, Boulder, USA | 3 | 44 | |
Technion—Israel, Haifa, Israel | 3 | 148 | |
John Hopkins, Baltimore, USA | 3 | 15 | |
National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg/Boulder USA | 3 | Not included |
The table lists only institutions with which at least three persons were affiliated. Complete lists of Nobel laureates are shown in the Appendix Tables 5, 6 and 7
** A Gini coefficient of zero expresses equality among the values in a frequency distribution; a Gini coefficient of one maximum inequality
We also calculated Gini coefficients as a measure of statistical dispersion for the number of scientists in Table 1. These coefficients indicate that the scientists are more equally distributed among the institutions where the prize-winning work was done (Gini = 0.17) and the Nobel Prize awarded (Gini = 0.19) than among the institutions where the Ph.D./M.D. was obtained (Gini = 0.24). Obviously, certain institutions (like Harvard University) are not only able to recruit promising Ph.D./M.D. candidates, but offer also fruitful environments for starting a successful career in science.
In detail, Table 1 shows that most of the Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. in the USA at Harvard University (n = 14), the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) (n = 8), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (n = 6). Harvard University stood out from the others by far; with almost twice as many future Nobel laureates as UC Berkeley, it fulfilled the criterion as the most important university for future Nobel laureates.
Regarding affiliations while doing the relevant prize-winning work/paper, no single institution stood out with a very high number of persons: leading the list of institutions here were Cambridge University (U.K.) (n = 8), followed by UC Berkeley and Bell Laboratories, or Bell Labs (formerly AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories), with six persons each. Bell Labs, which took on the research functions for the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) company—a North American telecommunications company—is one of the few companies that can boast Nobel laureates (see http://ethw.org/Bell_Labs).
The research institutions with which a Nobel laureate was most frequently affiliated at the time of the Nobel Prize award were Stanford University (n = 10) and MIT (n = 6) (see Table 1). Looking at the research institutions across the different stages of the scientists’ careers, there were only three institutions that fulfilled the criterion at all three time points (Ph.D./M.D., prize-winning work/paper, Nobel Prize): UC Berkeley, Columbia University and MIT. A number of institutions were on the list for two of the three time points (such as Harvard University, Cambridge University U.K., Yale University and Technion-Israel).
The results make clear that the Nobel laureates did their prize-winning work/paper mainly at institutions in the USA. Still, the results differ greatly regarding the institution at which the prize-winning work was done: in Zuckerman’s (1977) study, the two most frequent institutions where the prize-winning work was done were Harvard University (n = 13) and Columbia University (n = 9), but in this study they were Cambridge University U.K. (n = 8), University of California, Berkeley (n = 6) and AT&T Bell Labs (n = 6) (see Zuckerman 1977, p. 171, table 6-3). In this study, only four Nobel laureates did their prize-winning work at Harvard University. The differences in the results of both studies are probably due to the fact that the time periods investigated in the studies were not of the same length and also that the historical and social contexts were different: Zuckerman (1977) looked at the period from 1901 to 1972, whereas this study examined the period from 1994 up to 2014. Similar to the results of this study are the results by Charlton (2007), who examined revolutionary biomedical science between 1992 and 2006 using Nobel Prizes, Lasker awards (clinical medicine) and Gairdner awards. However, Charlton’s (2007) study only looked at the time point of the Nobel Prize award and the field of biomedicine. In first place with the greatest number of Nobel laureates, Charlton (2007) found with n = 6 for MIT a similar number as this study, but also the University of Washington at Seattle (also with n = 6), which is not included in the list of institutions in this study (see Table 1).
In addition to examining the institutions with which the Nobel laureates were affiliated, we also looked at countries for the three time points of Ph.D./M.D., work/paper, and the Nobel Prize award. Table 2 shows the distribution of the 155 Nobel laureates in different countries at the three time points. As in Table 1, we listed only those countries in which we found at least three Nobel laureates. The table shows clearly that the USA was the country having apparently the best conditions for promoting a Nobel Prize winner. A similar result was reported by two other studies, which examined Nobel laureates in biomedicine (Charlton 2007) and economics (van Dalen 1999). Chan and Torgler (2015), who looked at Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and physiology/medicine between 1900 and 2000, found that “researchers educated in Great Britain and the US tend to attract more awards than other Nobelists” (p. 847).
Table 2.
Career stage | Country | Number of scientists |
---|---|---|
Ph.D./M.D. obtained* | USA | 79+$ |
United Kingdom | 19.5+ | |
Japan | 12 | |
Germany | 10.5$ | |
France | 7 | |
Israel | 5 | |
Russia | 4 | |
Canada | 3 | |
The Netherlands | 3 | |
Did the prize-winning work* | USA | 90 |
United Kingdom | 17 | |
Japan | 10 | |
France | 7 | |
Germany | 6.5++ | |
Australia | 5 | |
Israel | 4.5++ | |
Russia | 3 | |
Nobel Prize awarded* | USA | 98 |
United Kingdom | 14.5 | |
Japan | 10 | |
Germany | 7 | |
France | 7.5 | |
Israel | 4 | |
Australia | 3 |
+ MacDiarmid received two Ph.D.s, first at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA and later at Cambridge University, U.K
$ Günter Blobel received his M.D. in Germany and subsequently his Ph.D. in the USA
++ Ada Yonath performed her decisive work in Israel and Germany
* Several Nobel Prize winners indicated two addresses
Table 2 illustrates an interesting finding for Japan. Compared to other countries, Japan is very well placed, although previous bibliometric studies found that Japan does not perform well on field-normalized citation impact (Bornmann and Leydesdorff 2013). Even though the number of Nobel laureates in a country and citation impact is used as indicators (proxies) for measuring the quality of research, they appear to measure different aspects of quality.
Nobel laureates’ mobility
As described above, the different institutions counted different numbers of Nobel laureates when they obtained their Ph.D./M.D., did the prize-winning work/paper, and received the Nobel Prize. This result points to considerable mobility on the part of the Nobel laureates.
Table 3 visualizes their institutional mobility, distinguishing five types of institutional mobility behavior:
The Nobel laureates were affiliated with one and the same institution across the three career stages (Ph.D./M.D., prize-winning work/paper, Nobel Prize award).
The Nobel laureates obtained a Ph.D./M.D. at one institution and then moved on to another institution, with which they were affiliated while doing their prize-winning work/paper, and received the Nobel Prize.
The Nobel laureates obtained a Ph.D./M.D. at one institution and then moved to another institution, where they did their prize-winning work/paper. They received the Nobel Prize while affiliated with a third institution.
The Nobel laureates obtained a Ph.D./M.D. and did their prize-winning work/paper at one institution. They received the Nobel Prize while affiliated with another institution.
The Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. at one institution and then moved to another institution, where they did their prize-winning work/paper. They then returned to the first institution, with which they were affiliated when they received the Nobel Prize.
Table 3.
Type of mobility | Chemistry | Medicine/physiology | Physics | Total | % | Cumulative % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 10.4 | 10.4 |
2 | 19 | 17 | 22 | 58 | 43.0 | 53.4 |
3 | 15 | 21 | 12 | 48 | 35.5 | 88.9 |
4 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 15 | 11.1 | 100 |
5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Table 3 shows the Nobel laureates’ changes of affiliations. The counts show clearly that only 10.4 % of the Nobel laureates remain at the same place during their entire career. The rest were mobile either after obtaining their Ph.D./M.D. namely 78.5 % or after doing their prize-winning work namely 89.6 %. These percentages suggest that successful careers are related to mobility.
We also looked at mobility on a country basis, since the Nobel laureates changed institutions not only within a country but also across countries. Again, we found five different types of mobility:
The Nobel laureates were in one and the same country across their three career stages (Ph.D./M.D., prize-winning work/paper, Nobel Prize award).
The Nobel laureates obtained a Ph.D./M.D. in one country and then moved to another country, where they did their prize-winning work/paper and received the Nobel Prize.
The Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. in one country and then moved to another country, where they did their prize-winning work/paper. They received the Nobel Prize while they were working in a third country.
The Nobel laureates obtained a Ph.D./M.D. and did their prize-winning work/paper in one country. They received the Nobel Prize while they were working in another country.
The Nobel laureates obtained their Ph.D./M.D. in one country and then moved to another country, where they did their prize-winning work/paper. They then returned to the first country, where they received the Nobel Prize.
Table 4 shows the Nobel laureates’ mobility behavior across countries. The results show that a large part of the Nobel laureates, 77 % (see Table 4), were not mobile across countries and worked in only one country during all time points.
Table 4.
Type of mobility | Chemistry | Medicine/physiology | Physics | Total | % | Cumulative % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 36 | 38 | 40 | 114 | 77 | 77 |
2 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 10.8 | 87.8 |
3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1.4 | 89.2 |
4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 6.8 | 96 |
5 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 100 |
Comparing Tables 3 and 4 indicates that Nobel laureates most frequently changed institutions within a given country. This fits the observation by Hillebrand (2002): “Since 1950, almost all laureates have remained in the country in which they made their discovery” (p. 89). This sedentariness is not only a characteristic of laureates, but also of common researchers. According to the results of Elsevier and Science Europe (2013) “the most common mobility class in both Europe and the US is sedentary; that is, researchers with published outputs reflecting only affiliation(s) within a single European country or within a single US state during the period 1996–2011 inclusive” (p. 30).
Discussion
In modern science, evaluation of research is an increasingly important topic (Dahler-Larsen 2011; Power 1999). Whereas in the past the interest was in evaluating research presented in manuscripts or research proposals, today, entire institutions, research clusters and countries are being examined using indicators. Bibliometric indicators are certainly the most important class of indicators used (Moed 2005). With the aid of the underlying publication and citation data, evaluations can be done at any aggregation level—that is, from the individual researcher to entire continents. Bibliometric indicators can measure only the impact of science on science itself. But since science policy is interested in impact measurement above and beyond science and in other parts of society, scientometrics research is working on issues to measure this broader impact (Bornmann 2012, 2013).
Research is conducted by persons. As research prizes are usually awarded to persons who have made outstanding scientific achievements, the prizes are also used as indicators of research performance (Rodríguez-Navarro 2011, 2015).
As opposed to bibliometrics, however, the criterion of a research prize has two major disadvantages that make it difficult to use research prizes as indicators:
Because citation rates vary widely across disciplines and the variation has little to do with scientific quality, citation scores are normalized for this difference across disciplines (Vinkler 2010). Only through normalizing the impact scores of research institutions (and other entities), conduct research and publishing in different disciplines can be compared to one another. Since it can be assumed that there are discipline-specific patterns also with research prizes (many prizes are awarded only in a specific field), a comparison of results on the number of research prizes per institutions having different disciplinary profiles is not possible. To our knowledge, no methods for producing normalized numbers of research prizes yet have been suggested (if they are possible at all).
The awarding of research prizes, especially Nobel Prizes, is a rather rare event. A number of conditions have to be met for a research prize to be awarded, and not all of these conditions have to do with research quality. It can therefore be assumed that with the Nobel Prize there have been many false negatives: a number of important scientists that actually deserved the prize for their research findings or discoveries did not win a Nobel Prize for the various reasons (that had scarcely to do with research quality). The results of this study demonstrate that the research prize as a rare event is based on a small numbers of cases—even when the data is evaluated at the level of countries. With only a small number of cases, there is always the risk that results will be unreliable.
For these reasons, the results of this study should be handled with caution if they are used in an evaluative context. They may better be used to draw the public’s attention to topics investigated by the laureates (Chan et al. 2014a, b).
In this study we looked at the institution and country where a Nobel laureate did the work and was later awarded a Nobel Prize. To better understand the results of this time point, we in addition examined the number of Nobel laureates at the time points of obtaining their Ph.D./M.D. and when receiving the Nobel Prize. The results of the country analysis revealed that the USA dominates the country ranking. The institutional analysis shows that three institutions have a large number of Nobel laureates at all three time points: UC Berkeley, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The mobility analysis made clear that most of the Nobel laureates were mobile either after obtaining their Ph.D./M.D. or after doing the prize-winning work/paper. In most cases, the researchers moved from one institution to another within the same country (in the USA).
Explaining their individual motivations for moving or staying (using methods of qualitative research) could be a topic for future studies.
Despite the low numbers of events (n = 155 laureates) the results of this study in part resemble the findings gained by other studies. Analyzing citation impact, it was shown by Bornmann and Leydesdorff (2013) that countries such as USA, U.K., and Germany, having a high population number and a well working economy, lead in science. Bornmann and Bauer (2015) evaluated the list of 3216 researchers, who met the criteria of being highly cited researchers based on papers published between 2002 and 2012. They determined the number of highly cited researchers per institution and came to similar institutional rankings as shown in this study. A major difference to the current study is the fact that the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks in the top ten of highly cited researchers in contrast to none Chinese Nobel laureate in one of the three disciplines before 2015 (Y. Tu received the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine in 2015). We expect to see more Nobel laureates from China in the near future.
In this study, we examined a time point that was hardly previously analyzed: the career stage during which the researcher did the prize-winning work/paper. As laureates usually receive the Nobel Prize many years after this time point, the usual perspective in scientometrics, which attributes research achievements to institutions and countries at the award of the Nobel Prize, should be complemented by the perspective, which attributes achievements to the location where the researcher did the prize-winning work/paper.
Acknowledgments
Open access funding provided by Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.
Appendix
Table 5.
Year of award | Name | Justification | Ph.D./M.D. obtained | Did the prize-winning work(s) | Nobel Prize awarded |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | Olah, George A. | Olah “for his contribution to carbocation chemistry” | Technical University, Budapest, Ungarn | Dow Chemical Company (Sania, Ontario/Canada) | University of Southern California (USC), Los Angelas, USA |
1995 | Crutzen, Paul J. | Crutzen, Molina, Rowland “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone” | University of Stockholm, Sweden (Ph.D. and Dr. Science) | University of Stockholm, Sweden | Max-Planck-Institute f. Chemistry, Mainz, Germany |
Molina, Mario J. | Molina, Crutzen, Rowland “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of California Irvine (UCI), USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MA, USA | |
Rowland, Frank S. | Rowland, Crutzen, Molina “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone” | University of Chicago, USA | University of California Irvine (UCI), USA | University of California Irvine (UCI), USA | |
1996 | Curl (Jr.), Robert F. | Curl, Kroto, Smalley “for their discovery of fullerenes” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | Rice University, Houston, USA | Rice University, Houston, USA |
Kroto, Harold W. | Kroto, Curl, Smalley “for their discovery of fullerenes” | University of Sheffield, U.K | Rice University, Houston, USA | University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K | |
Smalley, Richard E. | Smalley, Curl, Kroto “for their discovery of fullerenes” | Princeton University, New Jersey, USA | Rice University, Houston, USA | Rice University, Houston, USA | |
1997 | Boyer, Paul D. | Boyer, Walker “for their elucidation of the enzymatic mech-anism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)” | University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA | University California (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA | University California (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA |
Walker, John E. | Walker, Boyer “for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)” | Oxford University, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, U.K | Medical Research Council (MRC), Cambridge, U.K | Medical Research Council (MRC), Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, U.K | |
Skou, Jens C. | Skou “for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na+ , K+ -ATPase” | Aarhus University, Denmark | Aarhus University, Denmark | Aarhus University, Denmark | |
1998 | Kohn, Walter | Kohn “for his development of the density-functional theory” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | University of California, San Diego, USA | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
Pople, John A. | Pople “for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry” | Cambridge University, U.K | Carnegie–Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA | Northwestern University, Evanston, USA | |
1999 | Zewail Ahmed H. | Zewail “for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy” | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA |
2000 | Heeger, Alan J. | Heeger, MacDiarmid, Shirkawa “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
MacDiarmid, Alan G. | MacDiarmid, Heeger, Shirakawa “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers” | University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA and Cambridge University, U.K | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | |
Shirakawa, Hideki | Shirakawa, MacDirmid, Heeger “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers” | Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | University of Tsukuba, Tokyo, Japan | |
2001 | Knowles, William S. | Knowles, Noyori “for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions” | Columbia University, New York, USA | Monsanto, St. Louis, USA | Monsanto, St. Louis, USA (retired) |
Noyori, Ryoji | Noyori, Knowles “for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions” | Kyōto University, Japan | Nagoya University, Japan | Nagoya University, Japan | |
Sharpless, K. Barry | Sharpless “for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions” | Stanford University, CA, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA | The Scripps Research Inst. La Jolla (TSRI), CA, USA | |
2002 | Fenn, John B. | Fenn, Tanaka “for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules” | Yale University, New Haven, USA | Yale University, New Haven, USA | Virginia University, Richmond, USA |
Tanaka, Koichi | Tanaka, Koichi “for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules” | no Ph. (Tōhoku University, Tōhoku, Japan; engineering degree) | Shimadzu Corporation Kyōto, Japan | Shimadzu Corporation Kyōto, Japan | |
Wüthrich, Kurt | Wüthrich “for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution” | Basel University, Swiss | Eidgenössische Tech. Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Swiss | Eidgenössische Tech. Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Swiss and The Scripps. Research Institute La Jolla (TSRI), California, USA | |
2003 | Agre, Peter | Agre, McKinnon “for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes”; Agre “for the discovery of water channels” | John Hopkins, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA | John Hopkins, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA | John Hopkins, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA |
MacKinnon, Roderick | MacKinnon, Agre “for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes”; McKinnon “for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels” | Tufts University, Medford, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | |
2004 | Ciechanover, Aaron | Ciechanover, Hersko, Rose “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation” | Hebrew University–Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel M.D. and Ph.S. at Technion–Israel Institute of Tech-nology, Haifa, Israel | Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel | Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel |
Hershko, Avram | Hersko, Chiechanover, Rose “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation” | Hebrew University–Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel M.D. and Ph.D. | Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel | Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel | |
Rose, Irwin | Rose, Hersko, Chiechanover “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation” | University Chicago, USA | FOX Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, USA | University California Irvine (UCI), USA | |
2005 | Chauvin, Yves | Chauvin, Grubbs, Schrock “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis” | No Ph. D. (degree L`École Chemie Industrielle, Lyon, France) | Institut Français du Pétrole, Rueil-Malmaison, (near Paris), France | Institut Français du Pétrole, Rueil-Malmaison, (near Paris), France |
Grubbs, Robert H. | Grubbs, Schrock, Chauvin “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis” | Columbia University, New York, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | |
Schrock, Richard R. | Schrock, Grubbs, Chauvin “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | |
2006 | Kornberg, Roger D. | Kornberg “for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription” | Stanford University, CA, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA |
2007 | Ertl, Gerhard | Ertl “for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces” | Technische Universität (TU), Munich, Germany | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany | Fritz-Haber-Institut, Max-Planck-Institute, Berlin, Germany |
2008 | Shimomura, Osamu | Shimomura, Chalfie, Tsien “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP” | Nagoya University, Japan | Princeton University, NJ, USA | Boston University Medical School, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA |
Chalfie, Martin | Chalfie, Shimomura, Tsien “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | |
Tsien, Roger Yonchien | Tsien, Chalfie, Shimomura “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP” | Cambridge University, U.K | Cambridge University, U.K | University California, San Diego, USA | |
2009 | Ramakrishnan, Venkatraman (also Venki) | Ramakrishan, Steitz, Yonath “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” | Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA | University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA | Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC), Cambridge, U.K |
Steitz, Thomas A. | Steitz, Ramakrishan, Yonath “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Yale University, New Haven, USA u. HHMI, New Haven, USA (both affiliations) | Yale University, New Haven, USA | |
Yonath, Ada E. | Yonath, Ramakrishan, Steitz “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” | Weizman Institute (WIS), Rehovot, Israel | Max-Planck Research Unit for Ribosome Structure, Hamburg, Germany and Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel | Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel | |
2010 | Heck, Richard Fred | Heck, Negishi, Suzuki “for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis” | University California (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA | University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA | University of Delaware, Newark, USA |
Negishi, Ei-ichi | Negishi, Heck, Suzuki “for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis” | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA | Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA | Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA | |
Suzuki, Akira | Suzuki, Heck, Negishi “for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis” | Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan | Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan | Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan | |
2011 | Shechtman, Daniel | Shechtman “for the discovery of quasicrystals” | Technion-Israel—Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel | Technion-Israel—Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel | Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel |
2012 | Lefkowitz, Robert Joseph | Lefkowitz, Kobilka “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors” | Columbia University, New York, USA | Duke University, Durham, USA | Duke University Medical Center, Durham, USA |
Kobilka, Brian Kent | Kobilka, Lefkowitz “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors” | Yale University, New Haven, USA | Duke University, Durham, USA | Stanford University, Stanford, USA | |
2013 | Karplus, Martin | Karplus, Levitt, Warshel “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems” | California Institute of Technology, (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Université de Strasbourg, France and Harvard University, Cambridge, USA |
Levitt, Michael | Levitt, Warshall, Karplus “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems” | Cambridge University, Medical Research Council (MRC), U.K | Medical Research Council (MRC), Cambridge University, U.K. and Weizmann Institute, Rohovot, Israel | Stanford University, School of Medicine, CA, USA | |
Warshel, Arieh | Warshel, Levitt, Karplus “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemicalsystems” | Weizmann Instistute of Science (WIS), Rohovot, Israel | Medical Research Council (MRC), Cambridge University, U.K. and Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel | University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA | |
2014 | Betzig, Eric | Betzig, Hell, Moerner “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy” | Cornell University, Ithaka, NY, USA | AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA | Janelia Research Campus, HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Inst.), Ashburn, USA |
Hell, Stefan Walther | Hell, Betzig, Moerner “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy” | Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany | University of Turku, Finnland | Max-Planck-Institute of biophysical chemistry (f. biophysikalische Chemie), Göttingen, Germany and German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum), Heidelberg, Germany | |
Moerner, William Esco | Moerner, Hell, Betzig “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy” | Cornell University, Ithaka, NY, USA | University of California, San Diego, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA |
Table 6.
Year of award | Name | Justification | Ph.D. M.D. obtained | Did the prize-winning work(s) | Nobel Prize awarded |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | Gilman, Alfred G. | Gilman, Rodbell: “for their discovery of G-proteins; and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells” | Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA M.D and Ph.D. | University of Virginia/University Texas, USA | University of Texas, Dallas, USA |
Rodbell, Martin | Rodbell, Gilman: “for their discovery of G-proteins; and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells” | University of Washington, Seattle, USA | National Institute of of Athritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases (NIAMD), Bethesta, USA | National Research Triangle Park (RTP), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), near Durham, NC, USA | |
1995 | Lewis, Edward B. | Lewis, Nüsslein-Volhard, Wieschaus: “for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development” | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA |
Nüsslein-Volhard, Christiane | Nüsslein-Volhard, Lewis, Wieschaus: “for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development” | Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany | European Molecular Biology Lab. (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany | Max-Planck-Institute f. develomental biology (f. Entwicklungsbiologie), Tübingen, Germany | |
Wieschaus, Eric F. | Wieschaus, Nüsslein-Volhard, Lewis: “for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development” | Yale University, CT, USA | European Molecular Biology Lab. (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany | Princeton University, NJ, USA | |
1996 | Doherty, Peter C. | Doherty, Zinkernagel: “for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence” | University Edinburgh, U.K | Australian National University, Canberra, Australia | St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA |
Zinkernagel, Rolf M. | Zinkernagel, Doherty: “for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence” | Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Ph.D., and M.D. University of Basel (Swiss) | Australian National University, Canberra, Australia | Institute of Exper. Immunology, Zürich, Swiss | |
1997 | Prusiner Stanley B. | Prusiner “for his discovery of Prions—a new biological principle of infection” | University of California, San Francisco, USA | University of California, San Francisco, USA | University of California, San Francisco, USA |
1998 | Furchgott, Robert F. | Furchgott, Ignarro, Murad: “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardio-vascular system” | Northwestern University Chicago, USA | State University of New York (SUNY) Brooklyn, New York, USA | State University of New York (SUNY) Brooklyn, New York, USA (retired) and University of Miami, FL, USA |
Ignarro, Louis J. | Ignarro, Furchgott, Murad: “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardio-vascular system” | University Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul, USA | University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA | University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA | |
Murad, Ferid | Murad, Ignarro, Furchgott: “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardio-vascular system” | Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA | University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA | University of Texas, Houston, USA | |
1999 | Blobel, Günter | Blobel: “for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell” | Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany (M.D.); University of Wisconsin, USA (Ph.D.) | Rockefeller University, Cell Biology Lab., New York, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA |
2000 | Carlsson, Arvid | Carlsson, Greengard, Kandel: “for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system” | University of Lund, Sweden | University of Lund, Sweden | University of Göteborg, Sweden |
Greengard, Paul | Greengard, Carlsson, Kandel: “for their discoveries concerning signal trans-duction in the nervous system” | John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA | Yale University, School of Medicine, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | |
Kandel, Eric R. | Kandel, Greengard, Carlsson: “for their discoveries concerning signal trans-duction in the nervous system” | New York University, School of Medicine, USA | New York University, School of Medicine, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | |
2001 | Hartwell, Leland H. | Hartwell, Hunt, Nurse: “for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle” | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA | University of Washington, Seattle, USA | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Ctr. Seattle, USA |
Hunt, Timothy R. | Hunt, Hartwell, Nurse: “for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle” | University of Cambridge, U.K | Marine Biology Lab, Woodshole, MA, USA | Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, U.K | |
Nurse, Paul M. | Nurse, Hunt, Hartwell: “for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle” | University East Anglia (UEA), Norfolk, U.K | University of Edinburgh, U.K | Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, U.K | |
2002 | Brenner, Sydney | Brenner, Horvitz, Sulston: “for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and ‘programmed cell ‘death’” | Oxford University, U.K | Medical Research Council (MRC), Cambridge, U.K | Molecular Sciences Institute, Berkeley, USA |
Horvitz, H. Robert | Horvitz, Brenner, Sulston: “for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and ‘programmed cell ‘death’” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Medical Research Council (MRC) Cambridge, U.K | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | |
Sulston, John E. | Sulston, Horvitz, Brenner: “for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and ‘programmed cell ‘death’” | University of Cambridge, U.K | Medical Research Council (MRC) Cambridge, U.K | Sanger Institute, Cambridge, U.K | |
2003 | Lauterbur, Paul C. | Lauterbur, Mansfield: “for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging” | University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA | State University of New York (SUNY), USA | University of Illinois, Urbana, USA |
Mansfield, Peter | Mansfield, Lauterbur: “for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging” | Queen Mary College, London, U.K | University of Nottingham, U.K | University of Nottingham, School of Physics and Astronomy, U.K | |
2004 | Axel, Richard | Axel, Buck: “for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system” | John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA |
Buck, Linda B. | Buck, Axel: “for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system” | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, Seattle, USA | |
2005 | Marshall, Barry J. | Marshall, Warren: “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease” | University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia | Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Australia | NHMRC Helicobacter pylori Research Laboratory, QEII Medical Centre, Nedlands, Australia and University of Western Australia, Australia |
Warren, J. Robin | Warren, Marshall: “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease” | University of Adelaide, Australia | Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Australia | Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Australia | |
2006 | Fire, Andrew Z. | Fire, Mello: “for their discovery of RNA interference—gene silencing by double-stranded RNA” | Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | Carnegie Institution f. Science, Baltimore, M.D., USA | Stanford University, CA, USA |
Mello, Craig C. | Mello, Fire: “for their discovery of RNA interference—gene silencing by double-stranded RNA” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | University of Massachusetts, Worchester, USA | University of Massachusetts, Worchester, USA | |
2007 | Capecchi, Mario R. | Capecchi, Evans, Smithies: “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA | University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA |
Evans, Martin J. | Evans, Capecchi, Smithies: “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells” | University College London, U.K | University of Cambridge, U.K | Cardiff University, School of Biosciences, U.K | |
Smithies, Oliver | Smithies, Evans, Capecchi: “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells” | Oxford University, Balliol College, U.K | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA | |
2008 | Zur Hausen, H. | Zur Hausen: “for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer” | Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (former Medical Academy), Germany | Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany | German cancer research center (DKFZ—Deutsches Krebsforschung Zentrum) Heidelberg, Germany |
Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise | Barré-Sinoussi, Montagnier: “for their discovery of human immuno-deficiency virus” | Institute Pasteur, Paris, France and University of Sciences, Paris, France | Institute Pasteur, Paris, France | Institute Pasteur, Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology depart., Paris, France | |
Montagnier, Luc | Montagnier, Barré-Sinoussi: “for their discovery of human immuno-deficiency virus” | University Sorbonne, Paris, France | Institute Pasteur, Paris, France | World Foundation AIDS Research and Prevention Paris, France | |
2009 | Blackburn, Elisabeth H. | Blackburn, Greider, Szostak: “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase” | University of Cambridge, U.K | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
Greider, Carol W. | Greider, Blackburn, Szostak: “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | John Hopkins, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA | |
Szostak, Jack W. | Szostak, Greider, Blackburn: “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase” | Cornell University, New York, USA | Harvard University, School of Medicine, Cambridge, MA, USA | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | |
2010 | Edwards, Robert G. | Edwards: “for the development of in vitro fertilization” | University of Edinburgh, U.K | University of Cambridge, U.K | University of Cambridge, U.K |
2011 | Beutler, Bruce A. | Beutler, Hoffmann: “for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity” | University Chicago, IL, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | University of Texas, Dallas, USA and The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA |
Hoffmann, Jules A. | Hoffmann, Beutler: “for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity” | University Strasbourg, France | French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Strasbourg, France | French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Strasbourg, France | |
Steinman, Ralph M. | Steinman: “for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity” | Harvard University, Cambridge, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | Rockefeller University, New York, USA | |
2012 | Gurdon, John B. | Gurdon, Yamanaka: “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent” | Oxford University, U.K | Oxford University, U.K | Cambridge University, U.K |
Yamanaka, Shinya | Yamanaka, Gurdon: “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent” | Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan Ph.D. and Kobe University, Japan M.D. | Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan and CREST, Japan and Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Japan | Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan | |
2013 | Rothman, James E. | Rothman, Schekman, Südhof: “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA | Yale University, New Haven, USA |
Schekman, Randy W. | Schekman, Rothman, Südhof: “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells” | Stanford University, CA, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | |
Südhof, Thomas C. | Südhof, Schekman, Rothman: “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells” | Max-Planck-Institute f. biophysical chemistry (f. biophysikalische Chemie), Göttingen, Germany and Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany | University of Texas, Dallas, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA | |
2014 | O’Kneefe, John M. | O’Kneefe: “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain” | McGill University, Montreal, Canada | University College London (UCL), London, U.K | University College London (UCL), U.K |
Moser, May-Britt | Moser M, Moser E: “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain” | University of Oslo, Norway | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway | |
Moser, Edvard I. | Moser E, Moser M: “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain” | University of Oslo, Norway | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway |
Table 7.
Year of award | Name | Justification | Ph.D./M.D. obtained | Did the prize-winning work(s) | Nobel Prize awarded |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | Brockhouse, Bertram N. | Brockhouse, Shull: “for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter”. Brockhouse “for the development of neutron spectroscopy” | University of Toronto, Canada | National Reactor Universal (NRU), Chalk River Laboratories (CRL), facility from Atomic Energy of Canada Limeted (AECL), Chalk River, Canada | McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada |
Shull, Clifford G. | Brockhouse, Shull: “for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter”. Shull: “for the development of the neutron diffraction technique” | New York University, USA | Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Oak Ridge, near Knoxville, Tennessee, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | |
1995 | Perl, Martin L. | Perl, Reines: “for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics”. Perl “for the discovery of the tau lepton” | Columbia University, New York, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA |
Reines, Frederick | Perl, Reines: “for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics”. Reines “for the detection of the neutrino” | New York University, USA | University of California, Los Alamos, Scientific Laboratory, USA | University of California, Irvine (UCI), USA | |
1996 | Lee, David M. | Lee, Osheroff, Richardson: “for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3” | Yale University, New Haven, USA | Cornell University, Ithaca, USA | Cornell University, Ithaca, USA |
Osheroff, Douglas D. | Osheroff, Lee, Richardson: “for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3” | Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA | Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA | |
Richardson, Robert C. | Richardson, Lee, Osheroff: “for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3” | Duke University, Durham, USA | Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA | Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA | |
1997 | Chu, Steven | Chu, Cohen-Tannoudji, Phillips: “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | Bell Laboratories (AT&T), room Alcatel -Lucent, Head office Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA | Stanford University, CA, USA |
Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude | Cohen-Tannoudji, Chu, Phillips: “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light” | École Normale Superiéure (ENS), Paris, France | Université de Paris 07, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. | Collège de France, Paris, France and École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France | |
Phillips, William D. | Phillips, Chu, Cohen-Tannoudji: “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light” | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT), Cambridge, USA | National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA | National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA | |
1998 | Laughlin, Robert B. | Laughlin, Störmer, Tsui: “for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations” | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT), Cambridge, USA | University of California, The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA | Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA |
Störmer, Horst L. | Störmer, Laughlin, Tsui: “for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations” | Universität Stuttgart, Federal Republique of Germany, BRD | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | Columbia University, New York, USA | |
Tsui, Daniel C. | Tsui, Störmer, Laughlin: “for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations” | University of Chicago, IL, USA | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | Princeton University, NJ, USA | |
1999 | _’T Hooft, Gerardus | _T’Hooft, Veltman: “for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics” | Utrecht University, The Netherlands | Utrecht University, The Netherlands | Utrecht University, The Netherlands |
Veltman, Martinus J. G. | Veltman, Hooft: “for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics” | Utrecht University, The Netherlands | Utrecht University, The Netherlands | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA (retired) | |
2000 | Alferov, Zhores (Schores) Ivanovich | Zhores, Kroemer, Kilby: “for basic work on information and communication technology”. Zhores, Kroemer: “for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics” | Electrotechnical Institute, (former depart. of Electronics of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), St. Petersburg, Russia | A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia | A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia |
Kroemer, Herbert | Kroemer, Zhores, Kilby: “for basic work on information and communication technology”. Kroemer, Zhores: “for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics” | Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany | Varian Associates, Paolo Alto, CA, USA | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA | |
Kilby, Jack S. | Kilby, Kroemer, Zhores: “for basic work on information and communication technology”. Kilby: “for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit” | No Ph.D. (Master`s degree University of Illinois, Illinois, USA) | Texas Instruments Incooperated (Bell liscensee), Dallas, USA | Texas Instruments Incooperated, Dallas, USA | |
2001 | Cornell, Eric A. | Cornell, Ketterle, Wieman: “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates” | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute of Laboratory of Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA |
Ketterle, Wolfgang | Ketterle, Cornell, Wieman: “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates” | Technische Universität (TU) Munich, Germany and Max-Planck-Institute of quantumoptics (f. Quantenoptik), Garching, Germany | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | |
Wieman, Carl E. | Wieman, Ketterle, Cornell: “for the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates” | Stanford University, CA, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA | |
2002 | Davis, Raymond Jr. | Koshiba, Davis: “for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos” | Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA | Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, USA | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA |
Koshiba, Masatoshi | Koshiba, Davis: “for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos” | University of Rochester, New York, USA | University of Tokyo, Japan | University of Tokyo, Japan | |
Giacconi, Riccardo | Giacconi: “for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources” | Università degli studi di Milano, Milan, Italy | American Science and Enginerring, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA | Assoc. Universities Inc., Washington DC., USA | |
2003 | Abrikosov, Alexei A. | Abrikosov, Ginzburg, Leggett: “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids” | Institute for Physical Problems (now the P.L. Kapitsa Institute), Moscow, Russia | P.L. Kapitsa Institute, Moscow, Russia | Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, USA |
Ginzburg, Vitaly L. | Ginzburg, Abrikosov, Leggett: “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids” | Moscow State University, Russia | P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia | P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the U.S.S.R. (now Russian) Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia | |
Leggett, Anthony J. | Leggett, Ginzburg, Abrikosov: “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids” | University of Oxford, U.K | University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K | University of Illinois, Urbana, USA | |
2004 | Gross, David J. | Gross, Politzer, Wilczek: “for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | Fermi National Accelarator Laboratory (Fermilab), Batavia, IL, USA and Princeton University, Joseph Henry Laboratory, NC, USA | University of California, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, USA |
Politzer, Hugh D. | Politzer, Gross, Wilczek: “for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA | |
Wilczek, Frank | Wilczek, Gross, Politzer: “for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction” | Princeton University, NC, USA | Princeton University, NC, USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | |
2005 | Glauber, Roy J. | Glauber: “for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA |
Hall, John L. | Hall, Hänsch: “for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique” | Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA | University of Colorado, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, CO, USA and The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, Boulder, CO, USA | |
Hänsch, Theodor W. | Hänsch, Hall: “for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique” | Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany | Max-Planck-Institute of quantum optics (f. Quantumoptik), Garching, Germany | Max-Planck-Institute of quantum optics (f. Quantenoptik), Garching, Germany and Ludwig-Maximlians-University, Munich, Germany | |
2006 | Mather, John C. | Mather, Smoot: “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation” | University of California, Berkeley, USA | NASA Goddard Institute for Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA |
Smoot, George F. | Smoot, Mather: “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation” | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | |
2007 | Fert, Albert | Fert, Grünberg: “for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance” | Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France | Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France | Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France, Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES, Orsay, France |
Grünberg, Peter A. | Grünberg, Fert: “for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance” | Technische Universität (TU), Darmstadt, Germany | Helmholtz IFF-Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institut f. Festkörperforschung (now: Peter Grünberg Institute), Germany | Helmholtz IFF-Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany | |
2008 | Nambu, Yoichiro | Nambu: “for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics” | University of Tokyo, Japan | University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, IL, USA | University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, IL, USA |
Kobayashi, Makoto | Kobayashi, Maskawa: “for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature” | Nagoya University, Japan | Kyoto University, Japan | High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan | |
Maskawa, Toshihide | Maskawa, Kobayashi: “for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature” | Nagoya University, Japan | Kyoto University, Japan | Kyoto Sangyo University, Japan and Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University, Japan | |
2009 | Kao, Charles Kuen | Koa: “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication” | University of London, College of London, U.K | Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL), Harlow, Essex, U.K | Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL), Harlow, Essex, U.K. and Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
Boyle, Willard S. | Boyle, Smith: “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit-the CCD sensor” | McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | |
Smith, George E. | Smith, Boyle: “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit-the CCD sensor” | University of Chicago, USA | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | Bell Laboratories (now: AT&T), Murray Hill, NJ, USA | |
2010 | Geim, Andre K | Geim, Novoselov: “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene” | Institute of Solid State Physics, Chernogolovka, near Moscow, Russia | University of Manchester, U.K | University of Manchester, U.K |
Novoselov, Konstantin S. | Novoselov, Geim: “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene” | Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands | University of Manchester, U.K | University of Manchester, U.K | |
2011 | Perlmutter, Saul | Perlmutter: “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” | University of California, Berkley, USA | University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA | University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA |
Schmidt, Brian P. | Schmidt, Riess: “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Australian National University (MSSSO Moint Strongly and Siding Spring Observations), Weston Creek, Australia | Australian National University (MSSSO Moint Strongly and Siding Spring Observations), Weston Creek, Australia | |
Riess, Adam Guy | Riess, Schmidt: “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | University of California, Berkeley, USA | John Hopkins University, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA | |
2012 | Haroche, Serge | Haroche, Wineland: “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems” | Université Paris VI (now Université Pierre et Marie Curie), Paris, France | École Normale Supérieure, Lab. Kastler Brossel, Paris, France | Collège de France, Paris, France and École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France |
Wineland, David J. | Wineland, Haroche: “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems” | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | University of Colorado, Boulder, CO and NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA | University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA and NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA | |
2013 | Englert, François | Englert, Higgs: “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider” | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium |
Higgs, Peter W. | Higgs, Englert: “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider” | University of London, King’s College London, London, U.K | University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K | University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K | |
2014 | Akasaki, Isamu | Akasaki, Amano, Nakamura: “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources” | Nagoya University, Japan | Nagoya University, School of Engineering, Japan | Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan and University Nagoya, Japan |
Amano, Hiroshi | Amano, Akasaki, Nakamura: “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources” | Nagoya University, Japan | Nagoya University, School of Engineering, Japan | Nagoya University, Japan | |
Nakamura, Shuji | Nakamura, Amano, Akasaki: “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources” | University of Tokushima, Japan | University of Tokushima, Japan | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
Contributor Information
Elisabeth Maria Schlagberger, Email: schlagberger@biochem.mpg.de.
Lutz Bornmann, Email: bornmann@gv.mpg.de.
Johann Bauer, Email: jbauer@biochem.mpg.de.
References
- Antonakis J, Lalive R. Quantifying scholarly impact: IQp versus the Hirsch h. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2008;59(6):956–969. doi: 10.1002/asi.20802. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Ashton SV, Oppenheim C. A method of predicting Nobel prizewinners in chemistry. Social Studies of Science. 1978;8(3):341–348. doi: 10.1177/030631277800800306. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Aziz NA, Rozing MP. Profit p-index: The degree to which authors profit from co-authors. PLoS ONE. 2013;8(4):e59814. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059814. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Becattini, F., Chatterjee, A., Fortunato, S., Mitrović, M., Kumar Pan, R., & Della Briotta Parolo, P. (2014). The Nobel Prize delay. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.7136.
- Binasch G, Grunberg P, Saurenbach F, Zinn W. Enhanced magnetoresistance in layered magnetic-structures with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange. Physical Review B. 1989;39(7):828–4830. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.39.4828. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Blobel G, Sabatini DD. Ribosome membrane interaction in eukaryotic cells. In: Manson LA, editor. Biomembranes. New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation; 1971. pp. 193–195. [Google Scholar]
- Bornmann L. Measuring the societal impact of research. EMBO Reports. 2012;13(8):673–676. doi: 10.1038/embor.2012.99. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Bornmann L. What is societal impact of research and how can it be assessed? A literature survey. Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology. 2013;64(2):217–233. doi: 10.1002/asi.22803. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Bornmann L, Bauer J. Which of the world’s institutions employ the most highly cited researchers? An analysis of the data from highlycited.com. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2015;66(10):2146–2148. doi: 10.1002/asi.23396. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Bornmann, L., & Leydesdorff, L. (2013). Macro-indicators of citation impacts of six prolific countries: InCites Data and the statistical significance of trends. Plos One, 8(2). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056768. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- Campanario JM. Consolation for the scientist: Sometimes it is hard to publish papers that are later highly-cited. Social Studies of Science. 1993;23(2):342–362. doi: 10.1177/030631293023002005. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Campanario JM. Have referees rejected some of the most-cited articles of all times? Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 1996;47(4):302–310. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199604)47:4<302::AID-ASI6>3.0.CO;2-0. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Campanario JM. Rejecting and resisting Nobel class discoveries: accounts by Nobel Laureates. Scientometrics. 2009;81(2):549–565. doi: 10.1007/s11192-008-2141-5. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Frey BF, Gallus J, Schaffner M, Torgler B, Whyste S. Do the best scholars attract the highest speaking fees? An exploration of internal and external influence. Scientometrics. 2014;101:793–817. doi: 10.1007/s11192-014-1379-3. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Frey BS, Gallus J, Schaffner M, Torgler B, Whyte S. External influence as an indicator of scholarly importance. CESifo Economic Studies. 2016;62(1):170–195. doi: 10.1093/cesifo/ifv010. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Gleeson L, Torgler B. Awards before and after the Nobel Prize: A Matthew effect and/or a ticket to one’s own funeral? Research Evaluation. 2014;23(3):210–220. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvu011. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Önder AS, Torgler B. Do Nobel laureates change their patterns of collaboration following prize reception? Scientometrics. 2015;105(3):2215–2235. doi: 10.1007/s11192-015-1738-8. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Önder AS, Torgler B. The first cut is the deepest: repeated interactions of coauthorship and academic productivity in Nobel laurate teams. Scientometrics. 2015;106(2):509–524. doi: 10.1007/s11192-015-1796-y. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Torgler B. Economic fellows and Nobel laureates in Economics. Economics Bulletin. 2012;32(4):3365–3377. [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Torgler B. Correspondence: Time-lapsed awards for excellence. Nature. 2013;500:29. doi: 10.1038/500029c. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Chan HF, Torgler B. The implications of educational and methodological background for the career success of Nobel laureates: an investigation of major awards. Scientometrics. 2015;102(1):847–863. doi: 10.1007/s11192-014-1367-7. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Charlton BG. Measuring revolutionary biomedical science 1992–2006 using Nobel prizes, Lasker (clinical medicine) awards and Gairdner awards (NLG metric) Medical Hypotheses. 2007;69(1):1–5. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.01.001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Chuang KY, Ho YS. Bibliometric profile of top-cited single-author articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Journal of Informetrics. 2014;8(4):951–962. doi: 10.1016/j.joi.2014.09.008. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Claassen C. Measuring university quality. Scientometrics. 2015;104(3):793–807. doi: 10.1007/s11192-015-1584-8. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Dahler-Larsen P. The evaluation society. Stanford: Stanford University Press; 2011. [Google Scholar]
- Egghe L, Guns R, Rousseau R. Thoughts on uncitedness: Nobel laureates and Fields medalists as case studies. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2011;62(8):1637–1644. doi: 10.1002/asi.21557. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Elsevier and Science Europe . Comparative benchmarking of European and US Research collaboration and researcher mobility. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2013. [Google Scholar]
- Englert F, Brout R. Broken symmetry+Mass of gauge vector mesons. Physical Review Letters. 1964;13(9):321. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.321. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Frandsen TF, Nicolaisen J. The ripple effect: Citation chain reactions of a nobel prize. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2013;64(3):437–447. doi: 10.1002/asi.22785. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Furchgott RF, Khan MT, Jothianandan D. Comparison of endothelium-dependent relaxation and nitric oxide-induced relaxation in rabbit aorta. Federation Proceedings. 1987;46(3):385. [Google Scholar]
- Gingras Y, Wallace M. Why it has become more difficult to predict Nobel Prize winners: A bibliometric analysis of nominees and winners of the chemistry and physics prizes (1901–2007) Scientometrics. 2010;82(2):401–412. doi: 10.1007/s11192-009-0035-9. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Harzing A-W. A preliminary test of Google Scholar as a source for citation data: A longitudinal study of Nobel prize winners. Scientometrics. 2013;94(3):1057–1075. doi: 10.1007/s11192-012-0777-7. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Heneberg P. Supposedly uncited articles of Nobel laureates and Fields medalists can be prevalently attributed to the errors of omission and commission. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2013;64(3):448–454. doi: 10.1002/asi.22788. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Herisson JL, Chauvin Y. Transformation catalysis of olefins by tungsten complexes.2. Telomerization of cyclic olefins in presence of acyclic olefins. Makromolekulare Chemie. 1971;141(9):161. doi: 10.1002/macp.1971.021410112. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Hillebrand CD. Noble century: A biographical analysis of physics laureates. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 2002;27(2):87–93. doi: 10.1179/030801802225003150. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Jones BF, Weinberg BA. Age dynamics in scientific creativity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2011;108(47):18910–18914. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102895108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kilby, J. S. (1959). Semiconductor structure fabrication, USPTO 3072832.
- Kroemer H. A proposed class of heterojunction injection lasers. Proceedings of the IEEE. 1963;51(12):1782–1783. doi: 10.1109/PROC.1963.2706. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Laband DN, Majumdar S. Who are the giants on whose shoulders we stand? Kyklos. 2012;65(2):236–244. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6435.2012.00536.x. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Mansfield P. Multi-planar image-formation using nmr spin echoes. Journal of Physics C-Solid State Physics. 1977;10(3):L55–L58. doi: 10.1088/0022-3719/10/3/004. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Mazloumian A, Eom Y-H, Helbing D, Lozano S, Fortunato S. How citation boosts promote scientific paradigm shifts and Nobel Prizes. PLoS One. 2011;6(5):e18975. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018975. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Moed HF. Citation analysis in research evaluation. Dordrecht: Springer; 2005. [Google Scholar]
- O’Keefe J, Nadel L. The hippocampus as a cognitive map. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1978. [Google Scholar]
- Patel VM, Ashrafian H, Almoudaris A, Makanjuola J, Bucciarelli-Ducci C, Darzi A, Athanasiou T. Measuring academic performance for healthcare researchers with the h-index: Which search tool should be used? Medical Principles and Practice. 2013;22(2):178–183. doi: 10.1159/000341756. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Power M. The audit society: Rituals of verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999. [Google Scholar]
- Rodriguez-Navarro, A. (2011a). A simple index for the high-citation tail of citation distribution to quantify research performance in countries and institutions. Plos One, 6(5). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020510. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- Rodríguez-Navarro A. Measuring research excellence number of Nobel Prize achievements versus conventional bibliometric indicators. Journal of Documentation. 2011;67(4):582–600. doi: 10.1108/00220411111145007. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Rodríguez-Navarro, A. (2015). Research assessment based on infrequent achievements: A comparison of the United States and Europe in terms of highly cited papers and Nobel Prizes. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, n/a-n/a. doi: 10.1002/asi.23412.
- Stephan PE, Levin SG. Age and the Nobel-Prize revisited. Scientometrics. 1993;28(3):387–399. doi: 10.1007/BF02026517. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Tanaka K, Hiroaki W, Yutaka I, Satoshi A, Yoshikazu Y, Tamio Y, Matsuo T. Protein and polymer analyses up to m/z 100,000 by laser ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 1988;2(8):151–153. doi: 10.1002/rcm.1290020802. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- van Dalen HP. The golden age of Nobel economists. The American Economist. 1999;43(2):19–35. doi: 10.1177/056943459904300203. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Vinkler P. The evaluation of research by scientometric indicators. Oxford: Chandos Publishing; 2010. [Google Scholar]
- Wagner CS, Horlings E, Whetsell TA, Mattsson P, Nordqvist K. Do Nobel laureates create prize-winning networks? An analysis of collaborative research in physiology or medicine. PLoS One. 2015;10(7):e0134164. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0134164. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ye SQ, Xing R, Liu J, Xing FY. Bibliometric analysis of Nobelists’ awards and landmark papers in physiology or medicine during 1983–2012. Annals of Medicine. 2013;45(8):532–538. doi: 10.3109/07853890.2013.850838. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Zhou ZW, Xing R, Liu J, Xing FY. Landmark papers written by the Nobelists in physics from 1901 to 2012: A bibliometric analysis of their citations and journals. Scientometrics. 2014;100(2):329–338. doi: 10.1007/s11192-014-1306-7. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
- Zuckerman H. Scientific elite. Nobel laureates in the United States. New York, NY: Free Press; 1977. [Google Scholar]