The first of six 2024 Nobel Prizes was announced yesterday (Oct. 7), with a pair of U.S. scientists receiving the prize for physiology or medicine. Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, professors at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Harvard Medical School, respectively, were given the award for their discovery of microRNA, a class of tiny RNA molecules that plays a crucial role in gene regulation.
The announcement will kick off a week of Nobel Prizes given for physics, chemistry, peace, literature and economics. For more than a century, the awards have been held annually to recognize those making significant contributions towards the benefit of humanity—and offer them large sums of cash in return for their achievements. Established in 1895 by the will of Alfred Nobel and funded by an estate valued at $2.2 billion ($212 million) in today’s money, the Nobel Prizes will dole out 11 million Swedish Kroner ($1 million) to each winner this year, with multiple recipients of singular awards splitting the winnings.
It doesn’t end there. Winners additionally receive a gold Nobel Prize medal, alongside the external financial benefits that come with receiving such a renowned award. Winners of the literary prize, for example, have historically seen their book sales skyrocket. Weekly sales for novels by the Canadian author Alice Munro, who won in 2013, rose by 722 percent in the U.S. after she became a Nobel Prize laureate.
While some winners use the proceeds to fund research or support others in their field, others put the money towards houses, boats and even croquet lawns. Here’s a look at how Nobel Prize laureates have spent their winnings over the years:
Sensible investments
It should come as no surprise that Sir Angus Deaton, a British-American economist whose work has centered on inequality and the link between money and happiness, took a rational approach to his prize money after receiving the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2015. The academic put the cash into his retirement fund, with plans to “spend it over the next however many years,” he told the Guardian in 2016. Others, meanwhile, have invested the winnings towards real estate. French author Albert Camus used the proceeds from his 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature to purchase a home in the south of France, where he began writing an autobiographical novel ahead of his untimely death three years later.
Luxury items
Not everyone has been so sensible with their newfound riches. Richard Roberts, a British biochemist who won the Novel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993, used his prize money to build a professional-grade croquet lawn in front of his house; while Franco Modigliani, the Italian-American winner of the 1985 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, put his winnings towards an upgrade for his laser-class sailboat. And Sir Paul Nurse, a British geneticist who in 2001 became a Nobel Prize laureate for physiology or medicine, reportedly spent some of his prize cash on trading in his motorbike for a larger model.
Helping friends and family
Some Nobel Prize laureates decide not to keep the funds for themselves, but instead dole them out to those closest to them. Albert Einstein, the German winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921, left his prize winnings to his ex-wife Mileva Maric. The scientist notably had agreed to give Maric the funds back in 1919, two years before he received the award—a sign of Einstein’s confidence that the Nobel Prize would eventually come his way. Meanwhile, after winning the award for literature in 1969, the Irish writer Samuel Beckett decided to give away the funds to his friends in need.
Bolstering the scientific community
Many Nobel Prize laureates have decided to pour prize money back into their research fields. Paul Greengard, an American neuroscientist who won the Novel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000, used the entirety of his award funds to create the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. Named after his mother, the award recognizes outstanding women in biomedical research. Christian Nusslein-Volhard, a German biologist who won the same award five years earlier, also used the proceeds to aid women researchers by creating a foundation offering grants to help female scientists with childcare and household help. And the American cosmologist John Mather, the 2006 Nobel Prize laureate for physics, funneled much of his prize money towards establishing a scholarship program for astrophysics and cosmology students.
Donations to charity
Other recipients of the Nobel Prize have used their funds to give back to a variety of charitable causes. After receiving the peace prize in 2009, then-U.S. President Barack Obama donated the entirety of his award winnings to ten nonprofits with missions ranging from working to increase college enrollment, support education and literacy in Central Asia and provide housing for the families of patients receiving medical care.
Dmitry Muratov, the Russian journalist who won the Nobel Prize in Peace in 2022, also decided to use the award for good. Instead of donating his prize winnings, however, Muratov auctioned off his gold medal for a staggering $103.5 million, with the proceeds going towards Ukrainian child refugees. The Hungarian Ferenc Krausz, one of last year’s winners for the physics prize, also put his funds towards Ukraine by awarding the prize money to a foundation offering educational access to Ukrainian youth.