The Ig® Nobel Prizes

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

"Last, but not least, there are the Ig Nobel awards. These come with little cash, but much cachet, and reward those research projects that 'first make people laugh, and then make them think'" — Nature

The Twenty-Second 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will occur on Thursday, September 20, 2012. Tickets will go on sale in early August, at the Harvard Box Office.

Watch video of last year (2011)'s entire ceremony. Or, if you're in a hurry, watch the pre-ceremony teaser below:

 

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  • The winners (all years — complete list)
  • Recent news (our blog)
  • The ceremonies (all years — details, video, mini-operas, etc.)
  • Some thoughts, recent, recent, slightly less recent and otherwise, about the Igs, about some of the winners, about what they may have done, what the Igs are, what they aren't, and what it could all mean, maybe. Science magazine ponders "How big a help is an Ig?"

    • The Twentieth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony happened Thursday, September 30, 2010. See archived video.

    2009 winners at the ceremony

    The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winners, joined by nine amused Nobel laureates, take a bow as the ceremony concludes. Photo: Richard Baguley.

    The Japanese public TV network NHK created this documentary about the Igs in 2002. Click above to watch.


    Ukraine TV

    The Ukrainian INTER TV network sent a crew to the 2010 ceremony. Click on the image (above) to see their report.


    Dutch filmmaker Bahram Sadeghi made six mini-documentaries, each about a different Ig Nobel Prize winner. Click the image above to watch the first in the series.

    Andy Jordan of the Wall Street Journal attended the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, and brought his videocamera. Click the image above to watch his report.

    CBS News profiled the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winners. Click the image above to watch.

    2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention — a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of protective face masks — assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle, Orhan Pamuk, and Paul Krugman. Click the image above to watch.

    The Russian network NTV traveled the world to interview Ig Nobel Prize winners. Their ten-minute report was originally broadcast in December 2007. The image here shows an NTV reporter visiting the (Literature Prize-winning) Nudist Research Library in Kissimmee, Florida.

    WCVB's Chronicle program did a five-minute introduction to the Ig in 2009. Click the image above to watch it.

    2004 Ig Nobel Peace Prize winner Daisuke Inoue -- the inventor of karaoke -- is serenaded by Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach (left), Richard Roberts and William Lipscomb, and by Studmuffins of Science creator Dr. Karen Hopkin. (Click on image to enlarge it) Listen to NPR's report.

    Viliumas Malinauskus, founder of Stalin World, accepting the 2001 Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Photo: Caroline Coffman. (Click on image to enlarge it)

    Every year, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel laureates.

    The Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Student, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard Computer Society.

    How to Get Involved

  • Nominate a candidate for an Ig Nobel Prize
  • Have your organization become a supporter
  • Volunteer to help at the events

    • Related Events in Other Places

    The Ig Nobel organizers and winners also present other events that (we hope) make people laugh and then think. For a list of upcoming events (including the annual Ig Nobel Tour of the UK), see the schedule.

    What Is the Experience Like?

    Personal reminiscences of some participants: Andre Geim in his official Nobel interview on the day he won a Nobel Prize in physics, ten years after winning an Ig Nobel Prize in physics, and on NPR [AUDIO] and The Guardian [AUDIO], Karl Halvor Teigen [VIDEO], Hideki Tanemura, part of the Wasabi Alarm invention team (and some business colleagues), Anna Wilkinson, Peter Snyder [VIDEO], Mirjam Tuk [AUDIO], Kate Clancy, Andrea Rapisarda, Elena Bodnar, Natasha Rosenberg [the original Miss Sweetie Poo], Miguel Apatiga, Dan Simons, Chittaranjan Andrade, Fumiaki Taguchi (1 and 2), Stephan Bolliger [audio], Elena Bodnar [video, newspaper, newspaper]. Paul Krugman, Peaco Todd, Robert Matthews, Steve Nadis, Dan Ariely and Francis Fesmire [video], Chuang-Ye Hong [video], Glenda Browne, Paul&Storm and Benoit Mandelbrot [video], Snively, Peter Barss, Francis Fesmire,Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, Ramesh Balasubramaniam, Yukio Hirose, Kees Moeliker (a large PDF file), Kees Moeliker (again), Mark Benecke, Theodore Gray [with video], Annalee Newitz, Max Sherman, Michael Berry, Buck Weimer, Ig Nobel newlyweds Lisa and Will, the Boston Mensa delegation, Ida Sabelis, Arnd Leike [with video], Lawrence Nyveen, Arvid Vatle, Karl Kruszelnicki, Gordon McNaughton.

    Press accounts: Irish Times, Le Parisienne, Japan Times, La Vanguardia, Chemical & Engineering News, Cosmic Log, Psychological Science, Yale News, The Homer Tribune, Popular Mechanics, City of Vilnius, The Daily Edge, Ars Technica, Niagara This Week, Central European University, Financial Times [AUDIO], Die Zeit, Huffington Post, Maclean's, Computerworld, Daily Telegraph, RTT News, BBC News [VIDEO], Pour la Science, Observator [Romania, with video], The Hindu, Time, Time Machine LA-7-TV [video], Gulf News, Irish Times, Economic Times (and another editorial), The Independent, The Street, INTER TV Ukraine [video], Dagens Nyheter, Business Daily, New Europe, Reader's Digest, Maxim, Dagbladet, Jeopardy!, BMJ, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Tages Anzeiger, Innovation Finance Observer [1 and 2], Clarin,San Diego Union-Tribune, KCAL-TV [video and video], Financieel Dagblad, Ping Pong Top [video], Dundee Courier, Science Life, ABC Radio National [video and, quite differently, audio], Gizomodo, Financial Times, Have I Got News for You [video], Japan Times, Ukraine Weekly Mirror, Mass High Tech, Nos por Ca [video], JoongAng, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The World [audio], AOL News, Wall Street Journal [video], Chronicle [video], MSNBC [video], Reader's Digest, Nature Network, Der Spiegel, Live Science, ABC News [video], The Street, Times of India, Extreme Surprise [video], Popular Mechanics, How Things Work, Polityka, La Repubblica, Vancouver Sun, Livemint, Channel 4 News [video], Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, TG2 [Italy, with video], NOWNews [Taiwan, with video], La Recherche, Novayagazeta, Nature News, Montreal Gazette, China Youth Daily, L'Expression, El Nacional, Wall Street Journal, The Heights, FNN [Japan, with video], Network World, Upstreet, CBS News Sunday Morning [with video], MSN [in two parts: 1 and 2], ACS Chemical Biology, Associated Press, NTV [Russia, with video], Popular Science, El Spectador, The Age, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,Quest, New Scientist, Muy Interesante Junior, Nashua Telegraph, Montreal Gazette, Discovery Channel's Daily Planet [video report], The Sun, Noordelicht, Etiqueta Negra, National Business Review, The Sentinel, Agence France Presse, Wired News, Nature, BBC, Gulf News, Cambridge Chronicle, Shanghai Daily, Montreal Gazette, Blogcritics, CNN [with video], The Diamondback, Asahi Shimbun, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Financial Times, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Washington Post, The Guardian, China Central Television [20-minute video report], Russkii Newsweek(1,2,3,4), Asia-Pacific Perspectives, The Today Show, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Guardian, The Daily Yomiuri, Asahi Shimbun, CBS News (video and commentary),the New Zealand Herald, The New York Stringer, The New Indian Express, the BBC, and The Times of London, and more.

    Books: Several Ig Nobel books have been translated into many languages.