The official Nobel Prize data distinguishes three things that are easy to confuse: a prize, the award record linking that prize to a recipient, and the laureate—a person or organisation. That distinction explains why the 633 times prizes had been awarded through 2025 is not the same as the 1,026 laureates reported for that year, nor is 1,026 a count of individual people.
Where to find official Nobel Prize data
The Nobel Prize Linked Data specification describes the official dataset as authoritative information on Nobel Prizes and laureates since 1901. Its model is set out in Nobel Prizes as Linked Data, version 2.0, published by Nobel Prize Outreach on June 29, 2021. The specification defines the data structure; it should not be confused with a current statistical report.
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For the latest figures covered here, the Nobel Foundation’s 2025 annual report, published in 2026, reports cumulative totals through the 2025 reporting year. Nobel Prize Outreach’s 2025 Nobel Week media information, dated December 5, 2025, gives the cumulative count of prize awards since 1901.
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The specification separates the NobelPrize entity from LaureateAward records and Laureate entities. A prize entity can carry properties such as its category, year and motivation. A LaureateAward record connects a laureate to a prize and can record the recipient’s share. A Laureate entity represents the recipient, who may be a person or an organisation, and can include biographical or affiliation information.
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This structure lets the data represent shared prizes, repeat recipients and organisation laureates without collapsing them into one count. The right number depends on the question: are you counting prize occasions, recipient-to-prize records, or distinct recipients?
How to interpret the 2025 cumulative figures
| Figure | What it counts | Reporting source and period |
|---|---|---|
| 633 | Times Nobel Prizes had been awarded since 1901; this is an award-instance count. | Nobel Prize Outreach, 2025 Nobel Week media information, dated December 5, 2025. |
| 1,026 | Laureates reported through 2025, including repeat awards and organisations; it is not a count of unique individuals. | The Nobel Foundation, 2025 annual report, published in 2026. |
| 990 | Individuals among the laureates reported through 2025. | The Nobel Foundation, 2025 annual report, published in 2026. |
| 28 | Organisations among the laureates reported through 2025. | The Nobel Foundation, 2025 annual report, published in 2026. |
| 99 | Recipients of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel through 2025. | The Nobel Foundation, 2025 annual report, published in 2026. |
The totals answer different questions and should not be added together. The 990 individuals and 28 organisations are the composition of the 1,026 laureates reported by the Foundation; the laureate total is higher than the number of individual people because some people received prizes more than once. The 633 figure instead counts award occasions.
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Why prize, award and laureate counts differ
A prize can have multiple recipients
A Nobel Prize may be shared by as many as three people. The prize remains one award occasion, while the data can represent each recipient’s connection to it in a separate LaureateAward record. A recipient count can therefore exceed the number of award occasions.
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When a person receives prizes more than once, that person appears in multiple award-level records but remains one individual. This is why a count of LaureateAward records is not automatically a count of unique people.
Organisations can be laureates
Not every laureate is an individual. The Foundation’s 2025 total explicitly includes 28 organisations, so describing all 1,026 laureates as people would be inaccurate.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to report or compare Nobel statistics
- For award activity: label the figure as prize awards or award instances, and state the years covered.
- For recipients: say whether the count is laureate award records or distinct laureates.
- For people: identify the figure as unique individuals and keep organisation laureates separate.
- For shared prizes: distinguish the award occasion from the recipients and their recorded shares, which may be a whole, half, third or quarter share.
- For category comparisons: define whether the comparison counts awards or recipients, and specify whether it includes all six categories. The cumulative totals cited here include the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Aggregate totals alone do not establish demographic patterns or how awards are distributed across groups. Those conclusions require a defined data extract and analysis suited to the question.
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