Nobel Prize for medicine awarded to hepatitis C researchers

Tug of war Marta Farra, the 'Hercules girl' at a tug of war with gold cup

Are academic prizes letting down the team?

‘Every young student of science has had a fantasy about winning a Nobel prize,’ says one laureate – and ever more rival prizes are being established. But with a cast of thousands currently pursuing the holy grail of a vaccine for Covid-19, might awards committees finally jettison their problematic focus on lone genius, asks Jack Grove

By Jack Grove

6 August

Award Nobels to teams, not individual ‘heroes’, say scientists

Scholars say group awards would place focus on discovery itself and help to mitigate bias

By Ellie Bothwell

14 October

Is the Nobel prize good for science?

David Matthews asks if elevating individuals to near-deity status undermines modern science’s purpose of deposing authority figures such as priests and popes

By David Matthews

5 July