Ig Nobel Prize

Ig Nobel Prize, any of the prizes awarded annually for unusual achievements that “make people LAUGH, then THINK.” The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded by Improbable Research, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that issues the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) every two months. The Ig Nobel Prizes, “Igs” for short, recognize amusing, imaginative, and often bizarre studies that are nonetheless mostly legitimate research. The prizes’ name is a reference to Ignatius (Ig) Nobel—a fictional character said to be a distant cousin of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, for whom the Nobel Prizes are named—and is also a pun on the word ignoble. Despite their satirical and lighthearted approach, the prizes do not trivialize the research they recognize. Their stated aim is to foster public interest in science, technology, and medicine by drawing attention to studies whose eccentric or unexpected nature encourages curiosity and reflection. On rare occasions the selection of award recipients has also served as a critique of public policy and institutional practices that have disregarded scientific evidence or been grounded in unscientific reasoning.

Origin and evolution

In 1990 American mathematician and programmer Marc Abrahams joined the satirical science magazine The Journal of Irreproducible Results (JIR) as its editor. This magazine, established in 1955, publishes lighthearted parodies of academic literature, bogus scientific studies, and satirical commentary on absurd research. Abrahams organized the first Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 1991 to promote the magazine—awarding both real and fictitious champions of knowledge—but the scientific community showed little enthusiasm, perceiving the award as an “anti-prize.” From their second year onward, the prizes shifted their focus to unusual but authentic research, both in response to criticism and to establish greater credibility. Following an ownership change in 1994, Abrahams parted ways with JIR to launch AIR. Since then Improbable Research, the company publishing AIR, has been the host of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

Focused primarily on targeting pseudoscience and public gaffes in their initial years, the Ig Nobel Prizes gradually evolved into a celebration of legitimate albeit eccentric research. Whereas the early ceremonies prominently featured nonscientists, political figures, and fringe thinkers, the majority of subsequent recipients have been academic researchers. The amount of peer-reviewed research receiving the prize has also increased steadily. A 2022 study found that between 2011 and 2020 more than half of the studies awarded an Ig Nobel Prize were published in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals.

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Categories and winner selection

There are no fixed award categories in the Ig Nobels. Every year 10 prizes are awarded in fields as diverse as aviation and veterinary medicine. Some categories overlap with those of the Nobel Prizes: chemistry, physics, literature, physiology or medicine, economics, and peace. Some of the other disciplines that the prize has been awarded in are Arctic science, acoustics, agricultural history, anatomy, astronomy, archaeology, biology, communication, demography, engineering, kinetics, management, mathematics, neuroscience, nutrition, obstetrics, public health, and psychology. Nominations can be submitted by anyone, and the selection committee accepts self-nominations.

The Ig Nobel Board of Governors, responsible for selecting the winners, includes scientists, science writers, public officials, athletes, and other professionals. To provide an additional perspective and maintain balance, one randomly chosen stranger also participates in the final deliberations. The selection process does not judge whether a study is admirable or absurd, good or bad. Instead, it focuses on work that sparks curiosity and encourages people to think. In most cases the organizers also obtain advance consent from prospective recipients to ensure they have no reservations about receiving the award and to give them the option to refuse it.

Ceremony and traditions

From its inception to 2019, the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It debuted at the MIT Museum in 1991, moved to MIT’s Kresge Auditorium from 1992 to 1994, and was then hosted annually at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre until the COVID-19 pandemic forced four online ceremonies (2020–23). The event returned to MIT in 2024 and was held at Boston University in 2025. Beginning in 2026, the ceremony will move to Europe, with Zürich as its first European host. The organizers plan to move the ceremony around Europe in odd years but host it in Zürich in even years.

Prizewinners receive their awards from Nobel laureates invited to the ceremony. In keeping with the irreverent spirit of the Ig Nobel Prizes, the physical awards themselves are anything but conventional. Each winner receives a trophy made of cheap materials and, until recently, an obsolete Zimbabwean $10 trillion banknote (once worth about U.S. $0.04). The trophy is redesigned every year. In 2023 it took the form of a PDF that recipients could print, cut out, and fold into a trophy, and in 2025 it was a model of the human stomach featuring two facelike sides—one cheerful, the other grumpy. Citing inflation, the organizers replaced the banknote with a wet wipe in 2025. Winners also receive an award certificate signed by several attending Nobel laureates.

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The award ceremony is marked by a number of long-standing traditions. As winners take the stage, the audience showers them with paper airplanes. Each winner or winning team is given 60 seconds to give their acceptance speech. Winners who exceed the allotted time are traditionally interrupted by the repeated refrain, “Please stop, I’m bored,” delivered by an eight-year-old girl known as “Miss Sweetie Poo.” The ceremony also features 24-second-long lectures by eminent researchers on their work, which they must then summarize in 7 words (the 24/7 lectures); the premiere of a science-themed mini-opera every year since 1996; and attendees dressing up in costumes, among other fanfare. The ceremony has been streamed online every year beginning in 1995.

Notable winners

Impact

The stigma once attached to the Ig Nobel Prizes as spoof awards has over time given way to greater acceptance and appreciation. Besides sparking public interest in science, the prizes have helped raise researchers’ profiles by increasing their media exposure and public recognition. This global attention has helped recipients build new research networks, receive observational data from around the world, and connect with audiences beyond academia. Many of the seemingly absurd projects celebrated by the Ig Nobels have gone on to inspire practical advances in scientific knowledge. The awards also carry little professional stigma, as was demonstrated by physicist Andre Geim. Geim won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog and then, 10 years later, received the Nobel Prize for Physics for a completely different discovery.