The Uncertain Role of Nominations for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry^†

Graphical Abstract

The Nobel Prize Nomination Archives provides the names of the nominators and their nominees for the chemistry prize from 1901 to 1970. This data gives insights into the selection of the Nobel Laureates. One of the more unusual observations is an up-down-up nomination trend for many of the chemistry laureates at the very end of their nomination profiles. Some chemistry laureates received very few nominations; and some non-laureates received many nominations. The nomination patterns are often curious and always informative.

Abstract

The solicitation of nominations for the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry (NPch) is and has been the first step in the selection process since the very first awards were made in 1901. The number of nominations solicited by and provided to the Nobel Committee for Chemistry supports the belief by the nominators that their nominations are meaningful. In this publication, we examine data culled from the Nobel Prize Nomination Archives for the period 1901–1970 of the variable role of nominations in the selection process for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The evidence is overwhelming that nominations, in general, during the 1901–1970 period have not been the deciding, overriding factor in the selection of the recipients of the NPch. Rather, we posit that nominations from the preselected nominator-pool have been a source of information for the Committee, used to suggest future years’ contenders and possibly served as motivation for the Committee to seek nominations for specific nominees for future years. It is also clear that selections are often influenced by personal prejudices, for example, friendships, rivalries, and nationality.

Introduction

The Nobel Prize is the universal icon of extraordinary achievement in science.^1-3 According to the Nobel Prize website and archives, the first step in the selection process in the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (NPch) is the invitation to a carefully selected group of chemists to submit nominations.^{4, 5} Figure 1 illustrates the number of nominations received for the NPch from 1901–1970, the last year for which data is currently available for the NPch from the Nobel Prize Nomination Archive (as of December 2022),⁶ a resource that is seeing more utility.⁷ We posit that the composition of the nominators for specific nominees, the selectivity in which nominators are chosen, the increasing number of nominations over the years, and the disciplines⁸ of the members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (the selection committee) suggest that nominations and nomination pressure, that is, number of nominations over several years for certain nominees, play only a partial if not uncertain role in the selection of the laureates. The purpose of our research is to evaluate that hypothesis.

Figure 1

Number of nominations for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry from 1901–1970. Data from the Nobel Prize Nomination Archive.⁹

Our first publication dealing with the history and sociology of the Nobel Prize was The Mutation of the ‘Nobel Prize in Chemistry’ into the Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences published in 2020.⁸ In that publication, we reported on the increasing percentage of NPch being awarded to accomplishments in the life sciences and a high correlation of that percentage with the percentage of members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (the “Committee”) being life scientists. The Committee makes recommendations for the NPch to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their final decision.

In our just cited research, we questioned if there was “Nobel Prize steering” by those involved in the selection process. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed the role of nominations and nominees in the selection process by examining certain years and certain Nobel Prizes in a primarily qualitative fashion yet using data from the Nobel Foundation's Nomination Archive.⁶ We thus were able to examine historical trends over seven decades of the NPch. We point out that the Nobel Foundation's archives contain the names of the nominators and nominates but not the deliberations,¹⁰ thereby eliminating the possibility of some research directions. The analyses presented in this publication will be complemented by a subsequent study in which we examine quantitatively the nominations for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The earliest researcher to explore these archives was Robert Marc Friedman who studied the selection of the Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics between 1901 until 1950 in his 2001 book The Politics of Excellence.⁵ Our results extend Friedman's, not only because of the additional 20 years of coverage but in terms of the quantitative analyses we have performed in this and the next publication in this series.

The Influence of Nominations on the Selection of Nobel Laureates

Total number of nominations is not necessarily controlling

Table 1 lists several chemists who were nominated frequently but never received a NP as of 1970. One of these is the much-discussed Lise Meitner^11-13 who was nominated in 24 different years and actually received more nominations in physics (30, receiving four nominations in the 1960s) than in chemistry (14, the last being in 1948). Figure 2 displays the nomination chronological profile of the two chemists who received the greatest number of nominations without receiving the Nobel Prize (Christopher K. Ingold and Walter Reppe) and two chemists who received many nominations (Linus Pauling, 65 in 13 years; R. B. Woodward, 112 in 16 years) and did receive the Nobel Prize, Pauling in 1953 and Woodward in 1965.

Table 1. Leaders in unsuccessful nominees for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry from 1901–1970, by total nominations and by range of years nominated. The lifespans of nominees that go beyond the last access date of the Nomination Archives (1970) are listed.^[a]

Nominee	Total nominations
Sir Christopher Kelk Ingold	112
Walter Reppe	64
Georges Urbain	56
Neil Bartlett (1932–2008)	45+?
Lise Meitner	19+30*
Gilbert N. Lewis	41
Klaus Clusius	39
Friedrich Adolf Paneth	35
Fritz Kögl	35+3**
Gustav Tammann	35
Johan Arvid Hedvall (1988–1974)	34+?
Theodor Curtius	31
Henry Le Châtelier	32
Lyman C. Craig (1906–1974)	30+1**+?
Johannes Martin Bijvoet (1892–1980)	28+?
Hans Meerwein	27
Saul Winstein	25
Gabriel Bertrand	24

• [a] “?” refers to the possibility that this nominee, who lived beyond 1970, may well have received nominations in 1971 and thereafter for which data is not yet available from the Nobel Foundation. * Nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physics (NPph). ** Nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Figure 2

Nomination profiles for Christopher K. Ingold, R. B. Woodward, Walter Reppe, and Linus Pauling. Ingold and Reppe did not receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, while Woodward and Pauling did.

What is particularly interesting about Woodward and Pauling is both the number of nominations and the number of years. Clearly neither Pauling nor Woodward achieved a breakthrough achievement that catapulted them over some achievement threshold just prior to their receipt of the Prize. For some reason(s), the Committee and/or the Academy simply withheld their selections of Woodward and Pauling for many years. Also of note is the alternating characteristics in the number of nominations for Ingold, Woodward, and Pauling: up, then down, then up again toward the end of their nomination chronologies.

Table 2 lists the six scientists who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the very first year they were nominated. Of course, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff's award had to receive the NPch in his first year of nomination, in that 1901 was the first year of the Nobel Prizes. What is particularly interesting is that Francis Aston, Arthur Harden, and Harold Urey each received only one nomination in their award year. Several of those listed in Table 2 also received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Of particular note is the low number of nominations for some laureates and the high number for others; and the especially high numbers for some who never did receive the Nobel Prize (Table 1 and Figure 2). (In contrast with the NPch, Hansson et al. recently noted that in Physiology or Medicine, “it is unusual for a candidate to be awarded after only a few nominations.”¹⁴)

Table 2. Scientists who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the very first year they were nominated. Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

Nominee	Year of Award	Number of nominations in the award year
Jacobus H. van't Hoff	1901	11
Svante Arrhenius	1903	12^[a]
Francis W. Aston	1922	1^[b]
Arthur Harden	1929	1
Harold Clayton Urey	1934	1^[c]
Irène Joliot-Curie	1935*	3^[d]
Frédéric Joliot	1935*	3^[e]

• [a] Not counting seven in 1903 in physics. [b] Not counting three in 1922 for the NP in Physics. [c] Not counting one in 1934 for the NP in Physics. [d] Not counting nine in 1934 and six in 1935 for the NP in Physics. [e] Not counting five in 1934 and six in 1935 for the NP in Physics. * Jointly awarded

To be chosen in one's first year of nomination and with only a single nomination, or even three nominations, suggests a forceful intervention by a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Let's consider the case of Harold Urey. Urey had significant competition: for that year's NPch, Otto Diels had received six nominations in 1934 plus six prior to 1934; Sören Sörenson and Paul Karrer had each received five nominations in 1934 plus 11 and eight in previous years, respectively; and other illustrious candidates included G. N. Lewis, Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, Hermann Staudinger, and Paul Walden. Yet it was Urey who was chosen. Why?

In 1932¹⁵ and 1933,¹⁶ Urey and two collaborators published the detection of the hydrogen isotope of mass 2, later named deuterium. The single nomination for Urey came from a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (1925–1964),⁸ the Swedish physical chemist Theodor Svedberg (1925–1964), who saw in deuterium a way to support his agenda of basic chemistry research for advancing physiology. Immediately after Urey received his Nobel Prize, “Svedberg applied to the chemistry committee's special fund and to the Rockefeller Foundation for grants to use deuterium in protein studies.”⁵ Thus, the faint outlines of a conflict of interest can be seen. Marc Friedman has described a number of other examples of the powerful and commanding influence of a single member of the Nobel selection committees.⁵ One such individual was Hans Karl von Euler-Chelpin who served on the Nobel Committee for Chemistry from 1929–1946.⁸

Early indications that the quantity of nominations was not controlling

We begin our analyses with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931. Table 3 presents the nomination record for Friedrich Bergius and Carl Bosch who jointly shared that NPch. Table 3 indicates that the quantity of nominations was not controlling. Friedrich Bergius had only three nominations over the years. One might ask, “How did Bergius even share the award with Bosch in 1931, given how few nominations Bergius received? Was Bergius's once-ever nomination in 1931, and that nomination by the little-known Swedish chemist Erik Hägglund, so powerfully persuasive that Bergius would join the much-nominated (eight nominations in 1931) and very well-known Bosch in the Nobel Prize?” This observation suggests there were forces involved in the selection process other than nomination pressure.¹⁷

Table 3. Nominations^[a] for the 1931 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Friedrich Bergius and Carl Bosch according to the Nobel Foundation, “in recognition of their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high-pressure methods.”²³ Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1916		1920		1926		1929		1930		1931
Bergius	Bosch	Bergius	Bosch	Bergius	Bosch	Bergius	Bosch	Bergius	Bosch	Bergius	Bosch
	Pauly		Baumert		Ost	Pringsheim	Einstein		Palmær	Hägglund	Hägglund
			Erdmann				Plesch				Benedicks
			Schulze								Dalén
			Tubandt								Enströme
			Vorländer								Gröndal
											Hubendick
											Lindmark
											Richert
											Sondén

• [a] A reviewer of our submission had the following concern: that the reader might falsely assume that all nominations cited above were based on “the prize motivation” provided by the Nobel Foundation and indicated by the text within the provided quotation marks. We have not reviewed the nomination letters that are now available at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm for the nominations in this table. However, it is not evident the extent to which the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences strictly rely on the nomination letters in their decisions. Indeed, the major conclusion of this publication is that in many cases, factors other than scientific achievement influence the selection of the Nobel laureates. Nonetheless, it is likely, and we believe that the “prize motivation” provided by the Nobel Foundation for each of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry does reflect the laureates’ achievements for which they were and are being honored. Furthermore, while there may be a disconnect between some of the nomination letters and the Nobel Foundation's given “prize motivation,” our own understanding of the primary achievements of the Nobel laureates and their associated “prize motivation[s]” match rather well. Names in red refer to the year in which the named individuals received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Table 4 examines the nomination sequence for Edwin Mattison McMillan and Glenn Theodore Seaborg, colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, and joint recipients of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Prior to 1951, McMillan received only three nominations, two of which were for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Over several years, Seaborg received more nominations than McMillan. Furthermore, Seaborg's nominations occurred in an odd pattern, high then low, then high again: eight in 1948, four in 1949, two in 1950, and then eight in his NP year 1951. McMillan also received eight in 1951, five in physics and three in chemistry, with those three being paired with the exact same nominators for Seaborg. It is quite curious, that McMillan would have only one nomination for the NPch until 1951 and then, received eight in the exact year that Seaborg would also have such a resurgence, from two to eight in his nomination count. Note that in both cases, there was no spectacular scientific breakthrough in or shortly before 1951 that would have motivated the decision to share Seaborg's NPch with McMillan.

Table 4. Nominations^[a] for the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Edwin M. McMillan and Glenn T. Seaborg “for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements.”²⁴ Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1946		1947		1948		1949		1950		1951
McMillan	Seaborg	McMillan	Seaborg	McMillan	Seaborg	McMillan	Seaborg	McMillan	Seaborg	McMillan^[b]	Seaborg
	Fajans	Loeb*			Chipman		Buswell		Willard		Fermi
					Grove		Phipps		Hahn		Giauque
					Hill		Rodebush				Perey
					Noyes, Jr.		Villar				Willard
					Smith						Aten, Jr.
					Glockler					Lawrence	Lawrence
					Urey					Tiselius	Tiselius
					Riegel					Svedberg	Svedberg
				Yost						Svedberg*
				Siegbahn*						Hulthén*
										Rotblat*

• * Nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physics. [a] See footnote a in Table 3. [b] McMillan received one nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 and 1965. Seaborg received one nomination for the NPch in 1955.

Table 4 provides several patterns that we have observed often in these types of analyses.

• That there is a dip in the number of nominations received by eventual laureates just prior to the award year followed by a significant rise in their award year.

• In some instances, a laureate has almost no nominations prior to the award year, then suddenly there is an avalanche of nominations.

• In instances of shared Nobel Prizes, often there is a marked imbalance in the number of nominations among the chosen nominees.

• An unusual trend occurs in the award year, for example, when there are two individuals who share a NP, both nominees receive a number of nominations from the same individual in their award year while they had not experienced this pairing of nominators-nominees previously.

We conclude that the sequences of nominations shown in Tables 1–2 are not random (nor in the cases that follow). This suggests some type of organized behaviors over time,^18-21 either by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and/or by informal groups of nominators. Some, if not most “organized behaviors” by the Nobel Committees and their parent organizations, for example, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is not ill conceived. For example, recent efforts to address gender and ethnicity issues²² are certainly well founded.

One particularly glaring example of proactive involvement in the nomination and selection process by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry was previously documented by Friedman,⁵ that being the selection of Seaborg and McMillan for the 1951 NPch (Table 4). That selection of McMillan and Seaborg was championed by Svedberg, who in the 1950s had shifted his interest from physiological chemistry to nuclear chemistry. Svedberg contacted McMillan and Seaborg's Berkeley colleague Ernest O. Lawrence (NP in Physics in 1939) and asked him to nominate McMillan and Seaborg. Lawrence accepted, even allowing Svedberg to word his nomination letter. Svedberg nominated McMillan and Seaborg, and one can infer that he convinced his fellow member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (1947–1971)⁸ Arne W. K. Tiselius to nominate McMillan and Seaborg also (Table 4). Tiselius had been recently awarded the NPch (1947) and was Svedberg's protégé.

It is interesting to compare the nominations of McMillan and Seaborg for the 1951 NPch (Table 4) with some of the other nominees for that Nobel Prize (Table 5). Hermann Staudinger received 12 nominations in 1951 but had to wait until 1953 for his NPch. The recipients of the 1952 NPch were Archer Martin and Richard Synge “for their invention of partition chromatography.” Synge received two nominations, and Martin had received one; not strong indication that they would be the following year's selections.

Table 5. Number of failed nominations for the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Nominee^[a]	Number of nominations in 1951	Year of eventual receipt of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Archer J. P. Martin	2	1952
Richard L. M. Synge	1	1952
Selman A. Waksman	1	1952*
Hermann Staudinger	13	1953
Linus Pauling	4	1954, 1962**
Vincent du Vigneaud	1	1955
Sir Cyril N. Hinshelwood	1	1956
Lord (Alexander) Todd	2	1957
Willard Frank Libby	1	1960
Max F. Perutz	1	1962
Sir Christopher Ingold	4	–
Walter Reppe	7	–

• ^* Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [a] Single nominations were received for seven other individuals and two nominations for one individual who were never-recipients of the Nobel Prize. ** Nobel Prize in Peace

Further analyses for years in which there were shared Nobel Prizes

Examining the chronology of nominations for years in which two or more individuals shared the NPch is particularly revealing, as one recipient serves as the ‘control group’ for the other(s). Table 6 lists the nominations for the Nobel Prize received by Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta which ultimately led to their prize in 1963 “for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high polymers.” Again, we see some of the trends discussed for Table 4: an imbalance in the number of nominations of the two laureates; significant overlap in dual nominations by the same nominator; very few nominations in the year before the award; and a significant increase in the award year. Hermann Staudinger, the 1953 Nobel laureate, was consistent in his nomination of both Ziegler and Natta every year from 1957 to their NP year 1963. Eight other individuals nominated both Ziegler and Natta over the years.

Table 6. Nominations^[a] for the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta “for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high polymers.”³⁰ Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1954		1955		1956		1957		1958
Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta
Schenck			Quilico	Staude		Lüttringhaus		Mertz
			Piontelli			Staudinger	Staudinger	Krieger
							Caglioti	Schlenk
							Sadron	Glemser
								Staudinger	Staudinger
								Jordan	Jordan
									Giua
									Nasini
									Milone

1959		1960		1961		1962		1963
Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta	Ziegler	Natta
Schultze	Schultze	Müller		Kröger		Butenandt		Horner	Horner
Staudinger	Staudinger	Schlubach		Lipp		Staudinger	Staudinger	Staudinger	Staudinger
	Canneri	von Euler-Chelpin		Wannagat			Bonino	Néel	Néel
	Speroni	Butenandt		Huisman				Kern	Kern
		Fieser	Fieser	Butenandt				Stuart	Stuart
		Staudinger	Staudinger	Staudinger	Staudinger				Böttcher
			Rotini	Hopff	Hopff				Staverman
			Baccaredda-Boy		Segrè				Caglioti
			Pino		Hirota				Giordani
			Scrocco		Piontelli				Panizzi
			Rossi		Quilico				Sartori
					Simonetta				Tobolski
									Mandel
									Kauzmann

• [a] See footnote [a] in Table 3.

The up-down-up chronological trend in number of nominations observed in Table 6 is notable for two reasons. First, it is a trend that is observed in many other instances (see Figure 3). However, this trend is most certainly not general, nor would any nomination profile be general for all nominees. Their individual contributions and competition vary within the Nobel Prize experiences. Nonetheless, this up-down-up trend is observed sufficiently often to suggest that it is not a random pattern. In the NPphys/med, Hansson et al. have suggested instances where colleagues from the nominee's institution work together under the “erroneous assumption”¹⁴ that sheer numbers matter.^{25, 26}

Figure 3

Number of nominations for six chemistry laureates five years preceding their awards. An up-down-up behavior is noted at the far right of the graph for each Nobelist.

Additional research is necessary before firm conclusions can be made as to the cause(s) of this up-down-up pattern. Indeed, whether organized nomination activities, referred to as “subtle mechanisms”²⁶ to influence the selection committees, are successful is another topic for future research. There is another side to this coin. As Hansson and Schlich recently said,

“A culture of excellence is more than pushing for recognition of achievements. It includes the appreciation of, and commitment to, scientific achievements and the building of networks within, and sometimes outside, the scientific disciplines. … Not only does scientific excellence lead to prizes: recognition also leads to excellence.”²⁵

The Ziegler–Natta chronology (Table 6) is unusual among shared NPch in that they each received about the same number of nominations though at least 50 % of the nominations were not shared by both. Pairing the two chemists together was thus an inspiration of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Academy. Other missed pairings are noteworthy, as for example Bosch's miss with Fritz Haber (1918), Albert Eschenmoser's and Gilbert Stork's miss with E. J. Corey (1990), and any of a number of chemists who could have shared Ahmed H. Zewail's Nobel Prize (1999) for their use of spectroscopy in chemical research, for example, John D. Roberts among others.

Table 7 has a different nomination profile than those just discussed. The Diels–Alder reaction was first described in 1928 by Otto Diels and Kurt Alder,²⁷ though it was not until 1950 that the Nobel Prize was awarded to these two chemists for their eponymous discovery. Even today, almost a century after its discovery, the Diels–Alder reaction continues as one of organic chemistry's most important synthetic reactions.^{28, 29} The nomination profile in Table 7 reveals many nominations for Diels from 1932 to 1937 and only one nomination for Alder. This is likely due to Diels being the professor, Alder being the student. The tendency at that time and continues to today is to omit the student, especially if more than three chemists are being considered to receive the NPch (e.g., Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and Harry Kroto, with their students James R. Heath and Sean C. O'Brien omitted in the 1996 NPch “for their discovery of fullerenes”).

Table 7. Nominations^[a] for the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Otto Paul Hermann Diels and Kurt Alder “for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis.”³¹ Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1932		1933		1934		1935		1936
Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder
Fischer		Fischer		Fischer		Fischer		Fischer
Wieland		Wieland		Wieland		Wieland		Wieland
Windaus		Windaus		Windaus		Straus		Darzens
				Anschütz				Delépine	Delépine
				Bauer
				Rassow

1937		1942		1943		1944		1949		1950
Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder	Diels	Alder
Fischer		Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Holmberg	Wieland	Wieland
Wieland				Rupe				Borsche		Dufraisse	Dufraisse
Windaus
Leuchs
Tiede

• [a] See footnote [a] in Table 3.

In the 1940s and 1950, Diels and Alder received only one or two nominations in each year. (In 1932–1937, Diels had multiple nominations Alder had only one nomination in 1936.) In contrast, in Diels and Alder's Nobel year 1950, Christopher Ingold, Linus Pauling, Walter Reppe, Wojciech Świętosławski, and Hermann Staudinger received four, four, five, five, and five nominations, respectively, along with many other nominees. True, Staudinger (NPch in 1953) and Pauling (NPch in 1954) would shortly thereafter receive their NP, but not any of the others. This data demonstrates that numerous nominations are not a NPch certainty, as Ingold (with 112 nominations by 77 different individuals), Reppe with 64 nominations by 34 different individuals), Lewis (41 nominations by 29 different individuals) and others experienced full well.

There are other instances where Nobel laureates received few nominations, as in the case of Harden, Aston and Urey mentioned above, with a single nomination, or of Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1952 (Table 8). The 1952 competition included Lyman Craig (3 nominations), Morris Kharasch (4), Walter Reppe (4), and the heavily nominated Hermann Staudinger with 10 (1952), 13 in 1951, and 25 in 10 preceding years. While Staudinger did receive his NPch one year later, in 1953, on a nomination basis, neither Martin nor Synge was comparable to Staudinger's record.

Table 8. Nominations^[a] for the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge “for their invention of partition chromatography.”³² Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1950		1951		1952
Martin	Synge	Martin	Synge	Martin	Synge
Jorpes	Jorpes	Jorpes	Jorpes	Jorpes	Jorpes
Wolff		Mizushima		Meyer
Bergström*	Bergström*			Jorpes*

• * Nomination for the NP in Physiology or Medicine. [a] See footnote [a] in Table 3.

Comparisons by chronology

We now analyze data over several years for many laureates and two non-laureates (G. N. Lewis and Sir Christopher Ingold).

Table 9 lists the Nobel laureates in chemistry from 1958 – 1965 inclusive along with a tally per year of all their nominations, including their nominations for other Nobel Prizes. The nominations for Ingold are also listed, though he was not a Nobel laureate. A number of observations can be made based on the data in Table 3.

Table 9. Nominations from 1958 to 1965. The year of receipt of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is in gray background.

	–	1965	1964	1963		1962		1961	1960	1959	1958
Year	Ingold	Woodward	Hodgkin	Ziegler	Natta	Perutz	Kendrew	Calvin	Libby	Heyrovský	Sanger^[a]
Before 1946	1									11+5*
1946	0	1
1947	0	1								3
1948	1	1								7**
1949	1									2**
1950	4		1					1		2
1951	5					1			1
1952	0							1**		1	1
1953	4	2							1*	2+2**	1+1**
1954	4	3		1					3	1	2
1955	2	7			2				4	1	1
1956	6	4	1+1*	1					4+1*	12	1
1957	6	4	4+1*	2	3			3	7+1*	4	5
1958	2	5	0	6	5			5	2	1	6
1959	6	7	3+1*	2	4	1	1	4	3	13
1960	6	12	1+3*	6	7	1+2*	2*	6	4+3*
1961	5	14	2+2*	7	7	6+1*	5+1*	5
1962	3	6	1	2	2	5	4
1963	3	19	5	5	14	1	1
1964	4	7	6
1965	5	18
1966	4
1967	13
1968	4
1969	16
1970	7

• * Nobel Prize in Physics. ** Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [a] Sanger received his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980. However, he received no nominations for the NPch between 1959 and 1970. Data for subsequent years has not yet been released by the Nomination Archive.

• For the majority of laureates, there is hardly any relationship between the nomination chronological profile over time and the eventual award year. Several of the laureates showed the trend observed above: high, then low, then high in their receipt year.

• Consider Woodward. From the 1940s to 1961, nominations increased progressively to 12 in 1960 and 14 in 1961. Nominations dipped considerably in 1962 (6), to shot up to their maximum in 1963 (19), dipped again in 1964 (7), and then rose in 1965 (18), his award year. Note that those “dip” years for Woodward still represented large numbers of nominations for any one individual during the entire 1901–1970 experience in the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Woodward received more nominations for years 1960–1964 than any of the actual award recipients in those years and especially so in 1960 (12 versus 7), 1961 (14 versus 5), and 1963 (19 versus five for Ziegler and 14 for Natta). That is, for any one year, Woodward had more nominations, and his past performance showed more nominations. And the nominators were among the elite in science. For example, in 1961, four of Woodward's nominators were Nobel laureates (Bernardo Alberto Houssay, Leopold Ružička, Lord (Alexander) Todd, and Richard Kuhn) and two were eventual laureates (Derek Barton and Vladimir Prelog). In some years, there was a groundswell of nominations compared to the year before, for example, Woodward (7, then 12; 6, then 19; 7, then 18), Natta (2, then 14); Heyrovský (1, then 11).

• Consider Heyrovský. He received many nominations though sporadically from 1934 until 1955. In 1956, he received 12, then 4 (1957), 1 (1958) and then 11 in 1959, his award year. To go from one in 1958 to 11 the following year is remarkable and speaks to some type of concerted nomination effort. This is the chronological sequence discussed above: large numbers, low numbers, large again. This trend was observed for Woodward in the years leading up to his NPch: 7, 12, 14, 6, 19, 7, and 18.

• The continually unsuccessful nominations for Christopher K. Ingold appear in the second column of Table 9. The enthusiasm for a Nobel Prize for Ingold continued until the year of his death at the age of 77. Indeed, while his first nomination was in 1940, in 1969 he received 16 nominations and in 1970, he received seven. His total of 112 unsuccessful nominations over a 31-year period is a record for the NP in Chemistry. (We have not examined the other NP categories.)

• For a few laureates, the yearly number of nominations roughly increased with time until the year of their award (e. g., Walther H. Nernst (Figure 4

  

  Figure 4

  Nomination profile of Walther H. Nernst who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921.

  ), Frederick Sanger, Melvin Calvin, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin). This is a reasonable pattern, in that with time, the grounds for their achievements would become clearer (merit) and the support for the award (pressure on the Committee) might intensify. But there are many instances in which the yearly number of nominations went up, then down, then up again (and again).

Highly nominated but unchosen

Dmitri I. Mendeleev is an interesting case of a nominee who did not receive the Nobel Prize, despite having the support of leading figures of chemistry of this era, such as van't Hoff and Adolf von Baeyer, as well as of several influential Scandinavian chemists. In this case, the main obstacle Mendeleev faced was that he once criticized the achievements of the Swedish chemist Svante A. Arrhenius who had marked influence on the selection process.⁵ Even though he was not a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (but was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), Arrhenius was highly influential. He received the third NPch in 1903, he was director of the Nobel Institute from 1905 until his death at age 68 in 1927. Interestingly, Arrhenius's intervention against Mendeleev's prize occurred after the Nobel Committee for Chemistry had decided to recommend to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Mendeleev for the 1906 prize.⁵ The underlying reason Arrhenius opposed Mendeleev's award was personal: Mendeleev had criticized Arrhenius's dissociation theory.

Arrhenius also delayed Nernst's selection whose 58 nominations is among the most for a laureate (Figure 4). This time the reason was scientific rivalry, as Arrhenius and Nernst were leading figures in the 1890s in physical chemistry. Arrhenius's influence also extended to the Nobel Prize in Physics. He was a major reason for the delay and almost non-award to Albert Einstein.^{33, 34} As Friedman commented, biases were prominent in the early decades of the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry:

“Arrhenius of course was not alone in pushing biases and partiality among the Academy chemists. The initial biological turn in the committee⁸ and overt downplaying of theoretical advances in basic chemistry owes to von Euler and Svedberg, with Arrhenius long opposing any contribution that diluted the value of his theories. So no G. N. Lewis, Bjerrum, Brønsted, etc.”³⁵

Another chemist who never received the NPch but was nominated many times (41) over many years (17) was G. N. Lewis. Lewis was undoubtedly one of the most influential chemists in the first half of the 20th century³⁶ Much has been written about the failure of Lewis to receive the NPch.^{5, 37} Lewis's great achievement was his development of the covalent bond and his concepts of bonding (e.g., electron pairs) and Lewis acids and bases. Indeed, Lewis laid the groundwork for valence bond theory which continue to this day, a century later. He also made significant contributions to chemical thermodynamics (and authored with his colleague Merle Randall the important textbook Thermodynamics, more commonly known in the chemistry community as “Lewis and Randall”). According to Friedman, several members of the Committee had disdain for chemical theory, and thus Lewis's candidacy was doomed. Ironically, Arrhenius was one of those opposed to bringing more theory and especially physics into chemistry. In 1924 Arrhenius wrote in a report that “Lewis's work accomplished little beyond applying well-known principles of thermodynamics to chemistry.”⁵ Perhaps it was too late for Lewis, but he made other major contribution to experimental chemistry too. He introduced the triplet state into chemistry³⁸ and determined numerous properties of deuterium, deuterium oxide, and other deuterated compounds³⁶ shortly after its isolation by Urey.¹⁵

For evidence that Lewis was vetoed by one or more members of the Committee and that nominations for him had little value, consider award year 1929. In 1929, Lewis received eight nominations, having received nominations in four previous years as well. But the recipients of the NPch in 1929 were Hans von Euler-Chelpin with four nominations and Arthur Harden with only one. Indeed, Harden only received one nomination in total (Table 10). Harden's sole nomination came from Carl Neuberg, a German biochemist, who himself was being considered for the 1929 NPch.

Table 10. Nominations^[a] for the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Arthur Harden and Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin “for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes.”⁴⁵ Previous years’ nominations for these laureates also included.

1924		1925		1926		1927		1928		1929
Harden	von Euler-Chelpin	Harden	von Euler-Chelpin	Harden	von Euler-Chelpin	Harden	von Euler-Chelpin	Harden	von Euler-Chelpin	Harden	von Euler-Chelpin
	Angeli		Aschan		Aschan				Aschan	Neuberg	Neuberg
	Nernst		Willstätter		Planck		Planck		Planck		Aschan
					Willstätter		Willstätter				Bodenstein
							Unnamed member Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences^[b]				Willstätter

• [a] See footnote [a] in Table 3. [b] In the Nobel Nomination Archive, this nominee was referred to as an unnamed “Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.”

Ingold was the leader in unsuccessful nominations for the NPch, with 112 nominations from 77 nominators who resided in 22 countries. Clearly Ingold was an international community's choice. It is well known that the highly influential Sir Robert Robinson carried a decades-long, well-placed grudge that Ingold intentionally and willfully usurped the credit for the electronic theory of organic chemistry in the 1930s and 1940s.^39-41 Nobelist Derek H. R. Barton stated that Robinson had “torpedoed”^41-43 Ingold's NP. A full analysis of Ingold's failure to be so honored is reported elsewhere by us.⁴⁴ Our conclusion: personal bias against Ingold.

Multiple nominations by a single individual in a single year

What is the value of a nomination to the selection committees if the nominator, in that same year, nominates three or four or even seven individuals? Who is that nominator preferring? Why would someone make so many nominations in one year? Perhaps the nominations are less a sense of preference and more a matter of information-sharing. Karl Johann Freudenberg nominated seven individuals in 1965 (Fritz Arndt, Rudolf Criegee, Manfred Eigen, Hans Meerwein, Alfred Rieche, Georg Wittig, and Woodward (who received the NPch that year)). In each of the four years 1966–1969, Freudenberg provided four nominations, and he submitted three nominations in other years. He was not the only individual who was such a prolific nominator. Ružička provided six nominations for the 1927 NPph and five for the 1957 NPch. If nominations are so meaningful to the Nobel Committees, what are they to do with multiple nominations from the same individual?

A Nobel Irony: Justification for the Validation of the Nominations

One of the greatest ironies involving the Nobel Prize is the uncertain value of the nominations for the Nobel Prizes, at least the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry as discussed herein and elsewhere by us,⁴⁴ and the quite strict rules as to the eligibility of those who are entitled to submit a nomination. While Alfred Nobel specifically designated in his last will and testament the institutions responsible for managing the Nobel Prizes, Nobel was silent as to the processes of nomination and selection for the several Prizes. According to the Nobel Foundation's website,

“The right to submit proposals for the award of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry shall, by statute [designed and instituted by the Nobel Foundation], be enjoyed by:

1. Swedish and foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

2. Members of the Nobel Committees for Chemistry and the Nobel Committees for Physics.

3. Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry and physics.

4. Permanent professors in the sciences of Chemistry at the universities and institutes of technology of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.

5. Holders of corresponding chairs in at least six universities or university colleges selected by the Academy of Sciences with a view to ensuring the appropriate distribution over the different countries and their centers of learning; and.

6. Other scientists from whom the Academy may see fit to invite proposals.”⁴⁶

It is noteworthy that the criteria for nominees for the Nobel Prize in Physics (not reproduced here), also selected by the same organization as the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, that is, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, includes several major differences compared to the criteria for the NPch. For the NPph, criteria 2 and 3 omit the word “chemistry.” Of course, Criterion 4 appropriately replaces “Chemistry” with “Physics.” Are chemists more willing to see the value of physics within their discipline, but physicists do not see the value of chemistry within theirs? Is this a manifestation of the well-studied reduction of chemistry to physics?”^{47, 48} Is this a legacy of Comte's ideas on the hierarchy of science, where mathematics supports physics and the latter supports chemistry?⁴⁹

Surely one reason for such stringent criteria is to be assured that the nominations are of high quality. Another reason is likely to limit the number of nominations received each year. In 1970, even with these strict restrictions, 161 nominations for the NPch were received; in 1969, 233 nominations were received. Imagine if the doors were open to anyone and everyone? How could the Committee deal with such an abundance? (Note that the Nobel Prize Archive counts as „one“ nomination instances in which a nominator, for example, provides three nominations in the same year. In this publication, we count the above example as „three“ nominations.)

One might argue quite convincingly that to identify the most deserving candidates from which the Committee and Academy will choose, hundreds of nominations might not even be necessary. Above a certain number of nominations, the ‘cream’ should certainly rise to the top and duplications or lesser valued candidates would continue to be nominated.

But we add another thought. If the nominations are provided by such carefully selected nominees, why are there so many instances in which the nominations seem to serve little value?

Understanding the Data Used by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and Expanding the Information about the Award Process

This publication has focused exclusively on the nomination data available from the Nomination Archive provided by the Nobel Foundation.⁶ We have not discussed the validity of any of the selections made, or not made, by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Other sources have reported on both men and women who, according to their authors, deserved the NPch yet did not receive that award.^{5, 50, 51} Still others have discussed such omissions for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.⁵²

We are currently completing a statistical-based study using this Archive. The results show that not even accumulating nominations provides a greater likelihood of receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Likewise, a concentration of nominations in short periods is insufficient to guarantee a NPch.

Of course, we do not know what criteria are used today and in the past 50 years and how these are weighted by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. There is likely to be a great fluidity regarding the various criteria and considerations called upon to make such important and highly visible decisions. We wonder if the Committee uses, and if they do not, they should consider using computational tools and scientometric proxies^53-55 to handle the growing community of chemistry-related disciplines covered by the NPch and also that of scientists deserving the Prize.

While so much of the Nobel Prize process is shrouded in mystery, we do applaud the Nobel Foundation for making more and more information available. Would it be too much to ask that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences provide us with the instructions given to their invited nominators, including the requirements for a nomination, and even any updates and interpretations that go beyond Alfred Nobel's will? Current computational capacities allow also for storing and sharing scanned images of the nomination letters, which would constitute an excellent addition to the already well curated electronic information on nominations provided by the Nobel Foundation. Are there now considerations regarding equality and equity in the selection of the members of the Nobel Committee for chemistry, for the nominators, and for the laureates? Do the Nobel Committees have access and do they use previous years’ nomination in their considerations? To what extent do the Nobel Committees confer with each other? Do the Nobel Committees have tentative plans regarding future selections? Do the Nobel Committees specifically request nominations for certain specified individuals? Each of these questions can be answered by the current Nobel Committees without jeopardizing the 50-year confidentiality ban.

Further Discussion and Conclusions

The historical data suggests that nominations for the NPch have uncertain influence and are not a deciding, overriding factor in the final Nobel Prize selections. That being said, we believe that nominations were and continue to be a source of information for the Committee, used also to suggest future years’ contenders and possibly have served as motivations for the Committee to seek nominations for specific nominees in future years.

There are instances where being nominated many times over many years by many nominees from many countries have failed to lead to a Nobel Prize. For example, Lewis and Ingold were nominated often over many years yet failed to be so honored. In his analysis of why Lewis failed to be so honored, Friedman suggested that some members of the Committee were wary of theoretical ideas.⁵ Ingold's situation can be attributed to the very influential Robinson who hated Ingold for getting credit for his (Robinson's) electronic theory of organic chemistry.^{41, 42, 56, 57} Similarly, there were several luminaries, for example, Woodward and Nernst, who did receive the NPch but only after many years of nominations by many nominators. They were nearly unchosen, and given their accomplishments, such delays are indicative of negative motivations by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

In contrast, there have been instances over the decades in which just a few nominations led to a NPch. These latter instances were not the result of an extraordinary experimental or theoretical result having been just announced and there is a resultant sudden groundswell of support. Thus, having few nominations is not an automatic dismissal.

Especially revealing are the data for joint NPs in chemistry. These cases provide special insight, as one laureate serves as the ‘control nominee’ for the other, and vice versa. In numerous cases, one recipient had far more nominations during a period of far more years than the other.

But nominations often occur in certain patterns. We have seen a repeated pattern in which nominees receive high, then low, then high number nominations just at their prize year. In some cases, nominees receive very little support until their prize year.

These award chronologies speak to various types of special considerations made by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The data clearly supports the conclusion that nomination pressure is not always necessary for receipt of the Nobel Prize, nor do many nominations ensure a NPch.

Of course, there surely have been instances where nominations played an important role, especially when solicited by members of the Nobel Committee to support particular candidates. For example, a striking example is that of Palmær arranging nominations for Nernst and Bosch (and Einstein, for the Noble Prize in Physics) to counter Arrhenius's opposition.⁵ We are currently examining the entire NPch Archive to determine if receiving many nominations and being nominated in multiple years is correlated to success. We are also examining whether nationality or shared institutional affiliations are correlated with success for the NPch. Such relationships have been reported in the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine data.^{25, 58, 59}

Perhaps Pierre Laszlo was right when he speculated that the long delay in Woodward's Nobel Prize was the feeling by some influential scientists that Woodward's Pope-like demeanor⁶⁰ or that “he was not exactly Snow White”⁶¹ was off-putting.⁶² Joseph Berger has written that the reasons the author Chaim Grade did not receive the Nobel Prize in Literature “are often traced by scholars to the painful shortcomings of his tempestuous second marriage.”⁶³

However, such a massive outpouring of nominations (111) for Woodward over many years by many different nominators (70)⁶⁴ surely must have had some influence over the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences to award him the Prize. Otherwise, one might conclude that nominations were, indeed, meaningless. Indeed, the credibility of the Nobel Prize would have been severely challenged had Woodward, clearly recognized as one of the most eminent chemists ever, never received the Nobel Prize. The many years that the community and Woodward waited certainly reduced the credence of the Nobel Prize award system, as did the fact that Ingold and Lewis among others were never chosen.

Overall, the data presented here strongly support the conclusion that there are major nonscientific, human influences in the NPch selection process. Selections of Nobel Prizes have often been influenced by personal prejudices, for example, friendships, rivalries, nationality, and sadly, even religious-based discrimination, a conclusion supported by others.^{5, 14, 33, 65-67}

We also suggest that during the first seven decades of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, there were some types of ‘organized behaviors’ by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry along with members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences directing the selection of many of the awards. Whether that behavior was motivated by legitimate and less so professional biases toward or against certain types of science or was influenced by more personal and potentially unethical biases,^{5, 33, 59, 65} the answer is likely “yes” to both.⁶⁸

Might there have also been informal yet still organized behaviors within the chemical community. One type might well have been coordination in making nominations for certain individuals in certain years. This may well have taken place by individuals who were members of groups identified as having permanent invitations to submit nominations; see the previous section. This organized behavior is akin to the strategic decision by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Committee for Chemistry to transition to more life sciences in its awards beginning in the 1950s.⁸ This disciplinary shift of the NPch was surely an intentional and mindful result of deliberations and careful thought within the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Coordinated nominations have certainly occurred by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and members of other ranking Scandinavian honorary societies. Coordinated nominations by “Other scientists from whom the Academy may see fit to invite proposals”⁴⁶ is less likely but certainly practiced, as they would first have to know who had been invited to submit a nomination and in what year.

Biases against certain types of chemistry and specific scientists have been propelled by certain persuasive individuals. The racial prejudices against the Jewish Albert Einstein discussed recently by Friedman^{33, 65} are more difficult to prove, yet are far more controversial and exceedingly disturbing and harmful. We also note that there is bias covertly by the Nobel Prize nominators themselves. This is evidenced by nationalistic biases^{69, 70} and close-contact biases between nominators and their nominates,^{25, 70} a topic which we will discuss further in future publications.

That such biases occurred is not all that surprising, in that all human activities can be influenced by a variety of types of biases. But a conclusion of “not surprising” should be based on data rather than on general principles of human behavior and intuition. In this manuscript, we have presented and analyzed data from the Nobel Foundation. The scientific community and the general public have every right to expect the highest degree of professionalism from the selection organizations of the world's premier award program. In a sense, we have been promised that by the Nobel Foundation. Selections for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry during recent decades indicate that those expectations are being more responsibly met today in Stockholm than in the first 70 years of the Nobel Prizes, although that opinion is not held by at least one scholar in the field.⁶⁵

Coda: In Praise of the Nobel Committees and Their Parent Organizations

The well-researched information about personal conflicts of interest within the Nobel Prize process is fascinating and adds to a more realistic view of the Nobel Prize, in particular, and the world of science, in general. One might think that the Nobel Prize is based entirely on achievement (within the scope of Alfred Nobel's will),⁶⁷ not on social factors^{5, 33, 65, 68} and not an audience award, that is, an award involving audience participation. But the Nobel Committees and their parent organizations are surely not entirely insensitive or unsympathetic to the community's perspective. With 111 nominations, how could the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences not award Woodward the Nobel Prize? And so Woodward received the NPch in 1965. But Ingold, even with his 112 nominations, never received the prize.

Numerous nominations but unrequited accolade is not unique to the NPch. Jacques Loeb¹⁴ had 78 nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine between 1901 and 1924. In theory, the quality of a nomination, the research connected to it, and its consequences should be the controlling factors in the selection process. Pierre Laszlo has suggested that Michael Dewar's exclusion was due to his “acerbic tongue”⁶² and Woodward's delay was “because his private life was not deemed exemplary by the Nobel Committee.”⁶² Personal characteristics have also been suggested to be influential in at least one instance for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.¹⁴

In fact, the selection process is peopled by people! These individuals carry with them personal interests, research agendas, and other biases – and not all biases are strategically and operationally flawed. For example, a member of the Committee may try to foster a specific area of research, or the converse. Furthermore, the Nobel Committees, because their numbers are small, cannot achieve the degree of expertise to judge all the subdisciplines of chemistry and the molecular sciences (which now bleed into the life sciences⁸). This makes choices among several excellent candidates difficult to distinguish.⁵² And a too-often overlooked candidate may appear outdated.⁵² Sure, they have access to the most capable consultants. Sure, they invite and receive numerous nominations. But can the Nobel Committee members be able to fully assess, to feel the pulse of the vibrant field of chemistry in all its different specialties? It is an awesome and quite visible task. It is easy to criticize. It is also easy – but not always expressed – to be appreciative.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this publication are the view of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Chemistry – A European Journal, the Publisher, or the affiliated editors.

Acknowledgments

We thank Celia Arnaud and Juan Amaya for technical assistance and Robert Marc Friedman, Roald Hoffmann, Dean J. Tantillo, Gunnar von Heijne, and several meticulous and knowledgeable reviewers for helpful commentary, suggestions, and discussions.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Open Research

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Nobel Foundation Nomination Archive at https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/search.php, reference number 9.

Biographical Information

Jeffrey I. Seeman (Department of Chemistry, University of Richmond, Virginia, USA) has 250 publications in fields as diverse as natural products chemistry, chemical physics, responsible conduct of research, and the history and sociology of chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He created and manages the Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award program for the Division of the History of Chemistry of the ACS. He has served as Chair of the ACS Division of History of Chemistry, on the Board of Directors of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and on the advisory boards of the Petroleum Research Fund, The Journal of Organic Chemistry, and Accountability in Research.

Biographical Information

Guillermo Restrepo received his BSc (1998) and MSc (2003) degrees in chemistry at the Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia. He obtained his PhD at the Universität Bayreuth (2008) and held two postdoctoral positions (Universität Bayreuth, Texas A&M University). For a decade, he was a chemistry Professor at the Universidad de Pamplona (Colombia). He was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Universität Leipzig (2014–2017). Since 2017, he has been at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences where he conducts research on the history of chemistry through the mathematical and computational analysis of millions of substances and reactions. He is the 2020 recipient of the Gmelin–Beilstein Denkmünze of the German Chemical Society.