Nobel laureates sometimes display as much ingenuity when deciding how to spend their prize money as they did on the work that won them the award in the first place.
When Sir Paul Nurse won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2001, he decided to upgrade his motorbike.
A fellow winner in 1993, Richard Roberts, installed a croquet lawn in front of his house. Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, who won in 2004, said the prize meant “financial independence.”
This year’s awards get under way today, starting with the medicine prize and wrapping up a week later with the economics prize.
Once the frenzied media attention, formal appearances and ceremonies are over, this year’s Nobel laureates will also have to decide how to spend the 8 million kronor (US$1.25) prize money.
And judging from past experience, anything can happen. Sometimes they donate it to charity or scientific research, but that is by no means universal.
Nobel Foundation executive director Lars Heikensten said there were no obvious shopping trends among laureates.
“I think it depends a lot on which country they come from, their personal finances ... what kind of incomes they have when they get the prize, and where they are in life,” he said.
However real estate is a popular option, at least among those willing to reveal what they spend the money on.
More than a million dollars sounds like a lot, but it is often shared between several winners, diluting their Nobel spending power.
Wolfgang Ketterle at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who shared the 2001 physics prize with two colleagues, put his share towards a house and his children’s education.
“Since half goes to taxes in the US, there was nothing [more] left,” he said.
Phillip Sharp, the American co-winner of the 1993 medicine prize, decided to splash out on a 100-year-old Federal style house.
Deciding how to spend their money can take some time as new laureates are inundated with offers to attend meetings, lectures and inaugurations during their first year.
“I’ve not managed to think about the prize money. There have been great demands on my time,” said Serge Haroche, joint winner of last year’s physics prize, although he said he would probably look into real estate.
For winners of the peace prize the decision is often more clear-cut, as the honor tends to go to politicians, organizations and activists who are under more public scrutiny.
Many, like US President Barack Obama in 2009 and the EU last year, donate to charities.
Others support pet projects: the 2008 winner, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, said he would finance a conflict resolution group he had set up.
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank — which gives loans to lift people out of poverty — said he would fund an eye hospital and a business making affordable food for the poor with his 2006 prize money.
However, there has been one notable exception to the charitable giving.
Then-US president Woodrow Wilson won the prize in 1920, but left it in a Swedish bank to earn interest, apparently because he was concerned about life after retirement in an age when former presidents got no government pension, according to one biography.
HANDOVER POLICY: Approving the probe means that the new US administration of Donald Trump is likely to have the option to impose trade restrictions on China US President Joe Biden’s administration is set to initiate a trade investigation into Chinese semiconductors in the coming days as part of a push to reduce reliance on a technology that US officials believe poses national security risks. The probe could result in tariffs or other measures to restrict imports on older-model semiconductors and the products containing them, including medical devices, vehicles, smartphones and weaponry, people familiar with the matter said. The investigation examining so-called foundational chips could take months to conclude, meaning that any reaction to the findings would be left to the discretion of US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming team. Biden
INVESTMENT: Jun Seki, chief strategy officer for Hon Hai’s EV arm, and his team are currently in talks in France with Renault, Nissan’s 36 percent shareholder Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the iPhone maker known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, is in talks with Nissan Motor Co’s biggest shareholder Renault SA about its willingness to sell its shares in the Japanese automaker, the Central News Agency (CNA) said, citing people it did not identify. Nissan and fellow Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Co, are exploring a merger that would create a rival to Toyota Motor Corp in Japan and better position the combined company to face competitive challenges around the world, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. However, one potential spanner in the works is
HON HAI LURKS: The ‘Nikkei’ reported that Foxconn’s interest in Nissan accelerated the Honda-merger effort out of fears it might be taken over by the Taiwanese firm Nissan Motor Co has become the latest buyout target in Japan as it explores a merger with Honda Motor Co and faces an overture from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally. Shares in Nissan yesterday jumped 24 percent, the most on record, to hit the daily limit, after the two Japanese automakers acknowledged that talks are ongoing to better position themselves for competitive challenges during a time of upheaval in the global auto industry. Foxconn — a Taipei-based manufacturer of iPhones, which has been investing heavily in factories to build electric vehicles — has also
CHIP SUBSIDY: The US funding would help alleviate the financial pressure from building two fabs in the US and should lift gross margins in 2026, the company said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said it is to receive US$406 million in subsidies from the US Department of Commerce for two new US fabs under the CHIPS and Science Act, with the first batch of the funds likely coming next year. The grant represents 10 percent of the planned investments of US$4 billion in advanced semiconductor wafer manufacturing facilities in Texas and Missouri, GlobalWafers said. The commerce department is to disburse the funds based on the completion of project milestones over a multiyear timeframe, the company said. Along with the tax credit, which is equal to
RSS