The Mutation of the "Nobel Prize in Chemistry" into the "Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences": Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program

Abstract

Over the past several decades, the Nobel Prize program has slowly but steadily been modified in both transparent and opaque ways. A transparent change has been the creation of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. An opaque change has been the mutation of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry into what is effectively the "Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences." This paper presents a detailed study of this opaque change, including evidence that the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry cover, today, intellectually quite distinct and generally scientifically-unrelated intellectual territory. This paper supports the evolution of the Nobel Prizes, and encourages the Nobel Prize program to move from opaque to transparent change processes for the next generations of achievement in the sciences.

Keywords: Nobel Foundation; Nobel Prize in Chemistry; citation analysis; disciplinary identifications.