Getting the Nobel Prize in the five separate categories is a massive achievement for many, but some awardees also rejected the award as they do not feel like receiving one for doing what they are most passionate about. That being said, a new study centered on those who received it, and how the prize affected them after receiving it from the organization.

The study aimed to determine if such an award can affect productivity in their respective fields, especially as there are other types of recognitions in the world that are also prestigious.

Nobel Prize Affects Productivity? A Study Looks Into It

According to the study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Nobel Prize affects the productivity of the awardees after receiving the highest praise in their respective fields. The researchers centered on the data from the Nobel Prize awardees in Physiology or Medicine from the years 1950 to 2009.

Researchers from Stanford University in California and the University of Waterloo in Canada determined three measures for their criteria in the study. This includes the number of published papers, the novelty of published papers (what new idea or information they presented), and the number of citations in other articles.

As per the study, Nobel Prize winners scored higher in all three measures before getting the award compared to Lasker Award winners, but the data changed after getting their respective awards. Post-Nobel awardees either remained the same or dropped below the level of those who received the Lasker Awards. 

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Lasker Award vs. Nobel Prize

"These declines may reflect diversionary effects of the Prize, changed incentives, or intrinsically different career arcs for medical researchers who win the Nobel Prize," said the researchers.

According to Science Alert's report, the researchers claimed that after getting their recognitions, Lasker awardees also saw a decline after receiving the award, but have published at least one new study per year compared to the Nobel Laureates. 

Nobel Prize and its Winners

It is known that the Nobel Prize is generally awarded later in the careers of academics, being older compared to the Lasker Awardees. 

The Nobel Prize can also be awarded to multiple researchers in the same year, especially if they share equal footing in their contributions, like 2021's Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to those who advanced Climate Change studies in the world.

Another renowned academic, Sir Roger Penrose, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his earlier work regarding black holes being robust predictions of the general theory of relativity. Penrose also claimed that multiple big bangs happened in the universe before, and it is likely to happen again in the future, in his theory called "conformal cyclic."

While this recent study claims that there is either a drop in productivity or stays the same after getting the prize, this still does not tarnish their names and give shame to their contributions to the world.

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