The Nobel Committee can do one thing to avoid irrelevance, namely to resist the politicization of its awards by broadening its horizons

Politization is however not only a problem for prizes awarded by the European Parliament. Even the prestigious Nobel prize has been singled out for criticism.

According to French literature laureate Annie Ernaux, the Nobel prize is an institution “for men”. She laments that “It manifests itself by this desire for tradition. Being bound to traditions is perhaps more masculine, it is a way to transmit power to each other.”

This is hard to deny. Out of the 954 Nobel Prize recipients until today, a mere 6 percent have been women.

Moreover, the same can be said when it comes to minorities. Even if there was the first black laureate in 1950, only 16 black individuals won the prize since then, with none ever receiving the coveted awards in chemistry, medicine, or physics.

Naturally, race should not play any role in determining whether someone deserves the prize, but perhaps the Nobel Prize’s selection process needs to be reviewed, to see whether the decision makers are not mostly coming from the West, which increases the risk of a certain bias.

Certainly given the economic rise of the “rest of the world”, this may be a good idea, so to safeguard the Nobel Prize’s global prestige.

What’s more, also religious leaders continue to be overlooked, in particular those coming from the Muslim world. This despite the face that Islamic leaders have been making great efforts to promote interfaith relations, thereby countering ills like extremism or Holocaust denialism, while even challenging the science-faith divide in climate action.

These voices of the Global South deserve to be heard more often, and awards like the Nobel Prize can contribute to that. The Nobel Prize could truly serve as a catalyst for progress, by broadening its scope and embracing greater diversity. This could help to uplift voices from marginalized communities, empower underrepresented groups, and inspire a new generation of thinkers, peacemakers, and creatives from around the world.

https://www.brusselsreport.eu/2023/05/30/are-european-parliament-prizes-hopelessly-politicised/