The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious benchmark of scientific excellence in our time. It is used for ranking universities and gauging the scientific reputation of whole nations. This makes it the ideal example for investigating the mechanisms of scientific recognition. Our research group looks at the Nobel Prize and other major scientific awards to study how excellence is enacted, how, in other words, particular achievements in medicine were selected and acknowledged as the most excellent in the field. The work will offer new perspectives on scientific reward mechanisms and the role of credit and priority in science and medicine. Currently, we have three branches:

1. Gender Award Gap: In cooperation with scholars at the Centre for Health and Society at the Heinrich-Heine-University, we study why women receive fewer and less prestigious scientific awards than men [https://www.genderawardgap.hhu.de]

2. Our doctoral students (Dr. med. or Dr. med. dent.) research prize cultures in different medical disciplines: Marie Drobietz (cardiology), Michael Wiling (pharmacology), Lotte Palmen (neurology), Lena Hense (dental medicine) and Elisa Malik (pathology)

3. Together with international scholars, we arrange yearly symposia about (Nobel) prize cultures in different countries and universities, such as in Berlin, Charité (2017), Cambrigde, Harvard Medical School (2018), Berne, Berne University (2019), Montreal, McGill University (2019), Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2021), forthcoming Rome, Sapienza (2022), Leiden, Boerhaave Museum (2023). Volumes from these meetings include

Hansson N, Angetter-Pfeiffer D. (Hg) Laureaten und Verlierer: Der Nobelpreis und die Hochschulmedizin in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2021

Hansson N, Halling T, Fangerau H. (Eds). Attributing Excellence in Medicine: The History of the Nobel Prize. Brill 2019

Contact: nils.hansson@hhu.de