2026 Nobel Prize Season Opens, with Peace Prize in Focus During Trump's Second Term

[Financial News] Another Nobel Prize week has arrived for the global community after a tumultuous year marked by war in 2026. This year, particular attention is focused on the Peace Prize. Speculation has also emerged that researchers involved in the development of the obesity treatment Wegovy could receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
According to the Swedish Nobel Committee on the 2nd, this year's Nobel Prize announcements will take place from the 5th to the 12th of this month. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be announced on the 5th, followed by Physics on the 6th, Chemistry on the 7th, Literature on the 8th, Peace on the 9th, and Economic Sciences on the 12th.
The most closely watched prize this year is the Nobel Peace Prize, which is selected in Norway rather than by a Swedish committee. Several conflicts remain ongoing, including the Iran war that began in February, the war in Ukraine that has continued for more than four years, and the Gaza war, which has only just passed a critical juncture.
According to the Nobel Committee, a total of 287 candidates were recommended for this year's Peace Prize, including 208 individuals and 79 organizations. The list is reportedly believed to include Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has recently faced intense pressure from the U.S. government.
Korean citizens who overcame the Dec. 3 emergency martial law situation through nonviolent civic participation are also presumed to have been included among the Peace Prize candidates. Kim Eui-young, a professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Seoul National University, previously said that some political scientists, including former and current presidents of the World Political Science Association (IPA), had recommended Korean citizens as a whole for the prize in January. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly and openly expressed his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, also appears to have been included on the candidate list after receiving recommendations from Israel and Pakistan.
The independent peace and conflict research institute Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) also named Mykola Kuleba, founder of the relief organization Save Ukraine, which supports efforts to rescue children in Ukraine, and Sudan's volunteer relief network Emergency Response Rooms as possible Peace Prize candidates in its own forecast.
In the sciences, the obesity treatment Wegovy has emerged as a major topic. Clarivate Analytics analyzed citation data for research papers by scientists around the world and found that interest this year was particularly strong in GLP-1 obesity treatments such as Wegovy and Mounjaro. GLP-1 is a hormone secreted by the intestines after food is consumed, and it regulates blood glucose levels and appetite.
Daniel Drucker of the University of Toronto, Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen, and Rockefeller University research professor Svetlana Mojsov appear to have been included among this year's candidates for discovering the characteristics and biological functions of GLP-1. James Fujimoto of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and David Huang of Oregon Health & Science University, who contributed to the development of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for imaging human tissue with light, could also be contenders.
Clarivate Analytics also announced its expected candidates in Physics, Chemistry, and Economic Sciences. Physics candidates mentioned include Chihaya Adachi of Kyushu University, Stephen Forrest of the University of Michigan, and Mark Thompson of the University of Southern California, who contributed to the development of highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes.
In Chemistry, the potential of David Liu of Harvard University and others to win the prize has been discussed as base editing and prime editing—precision gene-editing technologies that directly edit DNA in living organisms—have drawn attention.
Those mentioned as candidates for the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences include Susan Athey of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Hal Varian, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, for their research on the economics of information technology, as well as Sidney Winter, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, for his contributions to evolutionary economics and organizational behavior.
In Literature, Can Xue, often called "China's Kafka," is being mentioned as a leading candidate. Regarded as one of the most experimental writers in modern Chinese literature, Can Xue has created a distinctive body of work blending dreams, fantasy, anxiety, and the unconscious. Mentioned as a Nobel Prize in Literature candidate almost every year since 2019, she is currently considered the most likely winner by the British betting site Ladbrokes.
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