2022 Nobel Prizes: The Full List

Every year in October, committees in Sweden and Norway award six Nobel Prizes, each recognizing a groundbreaking contribution by an individual or organization in a specific field.

Prizes are given for physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, economic science, literature and peace work. Winners receive a diploma and a medal, and each prize is also awarded 10 million Swedish krona, or about $900,000, which is divided if there are multiple winners.

During the pandemic, the Nobels made adjustments. In 2020 and 2021, some events were canceled in favor of a digital ceremony for the winners, and the Oslo ceremony for the peace prize was smaller than in most years, with a limited audience. This year, laureates will receive their Nobel Prize medals and diplomas in Stockholm in December, the organization said, and winners from the previous two years will also be invited.

This year’s winners

Physiology or medicine

On Oct. 3, Svante Pääbo was awarded the year’s first prize, for physiology or medicine. Dr. Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, won for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.

He won for his work in retrieving genetic material from 40,000-year-old bones, producing a complete Neanderthal genome and initiating the field of ancient DNA studies.

Read more about his work here.

Physics

On Oct. 4, the prize for physics was shared by three men, Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, for their work in quantum technology.

Their experiments have “shaken the very foundation of how we interpret measurements,” the Nobel Committee for Physics said.

Read more about their work here.

Chemistry

On Oct. 5, Carolyn R. Bertozzi Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless shared the award for chemistry for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry.

The three chemists have been working independently since 2000 to create functional molecules that have “led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together,” the Nobel committee said.

Dr. Bertozzi is the eighth woman to be awarded the prize, and Dr. Sharpless is the fifth scientist to be honored with two Nobels, the committee noted.

Read more about their work here.

Literature

On Oct. 6, the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to the French novelist Annie Ernaux.

Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, lauded the “courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”

Ms. Ernaux, 82, is the 17th female writer to have won the prize since it was formed in 1901.

Peace

The Nobel Prize for Peace was shared by Ales Bialiatski, a jailed Belarusian activist; Memorial, a Russian organization; and the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine.

“The Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in announcing the awards. “They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

The committee said it had chosen the three laureates because it wanted to honor the champions of “human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence” in the neighboring countries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Economic science

On Oct. 10, the prize for economic science was awarded to Ben S. Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair, and two other academics for their research into banks and financial crises.

Douglas W. Diamond, an economist at the University of Chicago, and Philip H. Dybvig at Washington University in St. Louis won the prize alongside Mr. Bernanke, who is now at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

(The economics award, among the highest honors in the field, is not, technically, a Nobel Prize. It is called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel because it wasn’t among the original categories that Alfred Nobel set out in his will in 1895.)