Nobel Genius

Awards shape careers, make research visible, and create role models. They provide evidence of prestige and credit and play a key role in evaluating individual scientists. Nevertheless, the understanding of prize cultures in science has remained surprisingly superficial. This book explores the prize cultures of the most famous scientific award worldwide: the Nobel Prize. It contributes to modern approaches in history and sociology of science that focus on the social context of scientific practices and gives new insights into the role of status and impact in academia.

Nils Hansson is Professor of the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. His research interests include recognition in academia, research ethics, and medical history in the Baltic Sea region.

Ad Maas is Curator of Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, the Dutch National Museum of the History of Science and Medicine, and Professor in Museological Aspects of the Natural Sciences at Leiden University.