
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.
The Ceremony: The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen on Thursday, September 14, 2023, at 6:00 pm (US eastern time). The 2023 ceremony will happen entirely as a webcast, not in a theatre.
A New, Additional Event One Month After the Ceremony: This year there will be a new, companion event called Ig Nobel Face-to-Face. Ig Nobel Prize winners and other researchers will ask each other questions about their work. There will also be music and other good stuff. This new event will happen in the MIT Museum, Cambridge, on Saturday evening, November 11, 2023. TICKET INFO will be announced here on the web site. (This event will not be webcast live.)
Some History of the Ceremony
Every September prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, in a gala ceremony in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, 1100 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the new winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed to them by genuine (and genuinely bemused) Nobel Laureates. Thousands more, around the world, watch the live broadcast online. During these pandemic years, the ceremony has happened entirely online. The 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony happened on September 15, 2022.
For more info, see the list of Ig Nobel Prize winners, and also the Archives (videos and details of past ceremonies) |
“Last, but not least, there are the Ig Nobel awards. These come with little cash, but much cachet, and reward those research projects that ‘first make people laugh, and then make them think'” — Nature
“It’s like the weirdest f-ing thing that you’ll ever go to… it’s a collection of, like, actual Nobel Prize winners giving away prizes to real scientists for doing f’d-up things… it’s awesome.” —Amanda Palmer
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