Nobel Prizes 2024: no coincidence

2024/10/10 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Sariak
• Berdintasuna

The Nobel Academy of Medicine has announced this year’s winners in the categories of Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. There are seven, and seven, the men, all white, and the men of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are seven. Therefore, the announcement made a few days earlier by Nature magazine has been fully complied with. Based on the profiles of the winners of previous years, he performed the following portrait: He is a 58-year-old American or, failing that, a European, white man and a specific academic family. So this year’s is no coincidence.

Scientists have already denounced that the Nobel Prize portrait does not correspond to the diversity that currently exists in the world of research, and that the Academy should update the criteria of the contest to overcome historical discrimination and adapt it to the reality of scientific activity.

It is not fair, not only to exclude several researchers by their gender or origin, but also to reward a maximum of three people in each category, even though science is a collective work.

In recent years, there were people who said that the Nobel Academy was changing, for example: Throughout the 20th century, only 11 women were awarded in science categories, while between 2000-2023 they were 15. until 2024.

Many find it a missed opportunity not to recognize the work of Rosalind Lee in the category of Medicine. In particular, the message disseminated following the announcement of the Nobel Academy Prize includes husbands Victor Ambros and Rosalind Lee in the photo, along with the following words: “Congratulations to our 2024 Medicine Prize, Victor Ambros. He has celebrated the award with his colleague and wife Rosalind Lee, who was also the first author of the 1993 Cell magazine article cited by the Novel Committee.”

Others have pointed out that Lee, in addition to being the author of the article that the Nobel Committee has valued for the prize, has worked with her husband and has made fundamental contributions. Yes, the head of the research team has always been Ambros. But that's no coincidence either.

As with gender, the journal Nature highlights in its editorial that the Nobel Prizes do not reflect the current diversity in the origin of researchers. Thus, in his own title he stated that the Nobel Academy should open a candidacy process in the Caribbean country.

He has set the example of China. According to the Nature Index database, the top ten organizations in the world that have contributed most to the natural and health sciences are those in China. However, only 10 scientists of Chinese origin have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in the Journalism modality.

The editorial has also criticized the nomination process, especially because it leaves out the scientific institutions of the most economically disadvantaged countries. Thus, he believes that the Academy should accept the help to identify candidates, and concludes with the following sentence: “One thing is to have a prize that is not the reflection of the world; another thing is not to reflect the world of science.”