Seeman Jeffrey I, Amaya Juan, Restrepo Guillermo
Department of Chemistry, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia 23173, United States.
Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany.
ACS Omega. 2025 May 13;10(20):20078-20094. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c08461. eCollection 2025 May 27.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is governed by the Nobel Foundation's rules and managed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences via its Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Despite 125 years of awarding these prizes and increased transparency from the Nobel Foundation, many aspects of the selection process remain obscure. Our analysis of the Nobel Prize Nomination Archive from 1901 to 1970 reveals that the decisions were heavily influenced by the personal and professional biases of the members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, who were not only responsible for inviting and assessing nominations but also for presenting recommendations to the Academy. Nobel laureates also significantly influenced the process due to their right to make ongoing nominations. The study suggests ways to improve the nomination and selection process to better reflect the evolving nature of chemistry in the 21st century.
诺贝尔化学奖由诺贝尔基金会的规则所管理,并由瑞典皇家科学院通过其诺贝尔化学委员会进行管理。尽管颁发这些奖项已有125年历史,且诺贝尔基金会的透明度有所提高,但评选过程的许多方面仍然模糊不清。我们对1901年至1970年诺贝尔奖项提名档案的分析表明,这些决定受到诺贝尔化学委员会成员个人和职业偏见的严重影响,他们不仅负责邀请和评估提名,还负责向科学院提出建议。诺贝尔奖获得者因其持续提名的权利也对评选过程产生了重大影响。该研究提出了改进提名和评选过程的方法,以更好地反映21世纪化学不断发展的本质。