Crafoord Prize – Wikipedia

Prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foundation

Award

The Crafoord Prize (Swedish: Crafoordpriset) is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord following a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.^[1] It is awarded jointly by the Academy and the Crafoord Foundation in Lund, with the former selecting the laureates.^[2] The Prize is awarded in four categories: mathematics and astronomy, geosciences, biosciences (with an emphasis on ecology) and polyarthritis,^[1] the final one because Holger suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis in his later years.

The disciplines for which the Crafoord Prize is awarded are chosen so as to complement the Nobel Prizes.^[2] Only one award is given each year, according to a rotating scheme – astronomy and mathematics, then geosciences, then biosciences.^[1] Since 2012, the prizes in astronomy and mathematics are separate and awarded at the same time; prior to this, the disciplines alternated every cycle.^[2] A Crafoord Prize in polyarthritis is only awarded when a special committee decides that substantial progress in the field has been made.^[2] The recipient of the Crafoord Prize is announced every year in mid-January and the prize is presented in April or May on “Crafoord Days”,^[1] by a member of the Monarchy of Sweden. As of 2024^[update], the prize money is 6,000,000 Swedish kronor (US$560,000), roughly half that of the Nobel Prizes.^[1]

The Prize is usually awarded to one recipient, but there can be as many as three.^[2] The inaugural laureates, Vladimir Arnold and Louis Nirenberg, were awarded the prize in 1982 for their work in the field of non-linear differential equations. Since then, the winners of the Prize have predominantly been men. The first woman to be awarded the Prize was astronomer Andrea Ghez in 2012.