Nobel Foundation
The Nobel Foundation (Swedish: Nobelstiftelsen) is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes.[2] The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.[3]
It also holds Nobel Symposia on important breakthroughs in science and topics of cultural or social significance.
Nobel Symposia[edit]
In 1965, the foundation initiated the Nobel Symposia, a program that holds symposia "devoted to areas of science where breakthroughs around the world are occurring or deal with other topics of primary cultural or social significance."[25] The symposia has covered topics such as prostaglandins, chemical kinetics, diabetes mellitus, string theory, cosmology, and the Cold War in the 1980s.[26] The Nobel Symposium Committee consists of members from the Nobel Committees in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine; the Prize Committee for Economics; the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation; and the Wallenberg Foundation.[25]
Other Nobel prizes announced by members of the Nobel family[edit]
In 2007, the Nobel Charitable Trust, founded by Michael Nobel, Gustaf Nobel, Peter Nobel, and Philip Nobel, announced their plans to establish a new Nobel prize, the Michael Nobel Energy Award, that will award innovations in alternative energy technology. It will be the first new Nobel prize established by the Nobel family since Alfred Nobel established his prizes. However, it will be awarded by the Nobel Charitable Trust and not by the Nobel Foundation, although both are organisations founded by the Nobel family.[27][28]
The plan was announced at nanoTX 07. The Nobel Foundation quickly reacted by threatening legal action for "clear misuse of the reputation and goodwill of the Nobel Prize and the associations of integrity and eminence that has been created over time and through the efforts of the Nobel Committees".[29] The director, Michael Sohlman, of the Nobel Foundation and the elected head of the Nobel family disapproved to the institution of the so-called 'Dr. Michael Nobel Award' as well as the Nobel Charitable Trust (NCT) and Nobel Family Benevolent society.[30]
