Background and Establishment of the Nobel Foundation

Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1896. The provisions of his will and their unusual purpose, as well as their partly incomplete form, attracted great attention and soon led to skepticism and criticism, also aimed at the testator due to his international spirit. Only after several years of negotiations and often rather bitter conflicts, and after various obstacles had been circumvented or overcome, could the fundamental concepts presented in the will assume solid form with the establishment of the Nobel Foundation. On April 26, 1897, the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) approved the will and soon afterwards elected members to the prize-awarding Norwegian Nobel Committee of the Storting. In 1898 the other prize-awarding bodies followed suit, approving the will after mediation: Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9 and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11.

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The Nobel Prize
Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

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The will was now settled. The task of achieving unity among all the affected parties on how to put its provisions into practice remained. The final version of the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation contained clarifications of the wording of the will and a provision that prizes not considered possible to award could be allocated to funds that would otherwise promote the intentions of the testator. The Statutes provided for the establishment of Nobel Committees to perform prize adjudication work and Nobel Institutes to support this work, as well as the appointment of a Board of Directors in charge of the Foundation’s financial and administrative management.

On June 29, 1900, the Statutes of the newly created legatee, the Nobel Foundation, and special regulations for the Swedish Prize-Awarding Institutions were promulgated by the King in Council (Oscar II). The same year as the political union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, special regulations were adopted on April 10, 1905, by the Nobel Committee of the Storting (known since January 1, 1977 as the Norwegian Nobel Committee), the awarder of the Nobel Peace Prize.