Nobel Prize Week 2026: When Each Prize Is Announced in India, and How Winners Are Chosen
The 2026 Nobel announcements start today, October 5, with the Medicine prize, and finish on October 12 with Economic Sciences. This guide covers the schedule and the basics. It does not say who has won, because that was not yet announced when we wrote it.
Schedule in Indian time
The Serbian outlet Srpske Novine lists the announcement times in Central European Summer Time, which is 3 hours 30 minutes behind India. India Today gives 3:00 pm IST for the Medicine prize, which matches. Converted, and all "at the earliest" except Peace:
- Medicine: Monday, October 5, 3:00 pm IST
- Physics: Tuesday, October 6, 3:15 pm IST
- Chemistry: Wednesday, October 7, 3:15 pm IST
- Literature: Thursday, October 8, 4:30 pm IST
- Peace: Friday, October 9, 2:30 pm IST (fixed time, announced in Oslo)
- Economic Sciences: Monday, October 12, 3:15 pm IST
"At the earliest" means an announcement can start a few minutes late but never early. Every announcement is streamed free on nobelprize.org. Check the official schedule for any change.
How the prizes work
India Today reports that the Medicine prize has been awarded 116 times to 232 individuals through 2025, and that a prize can be shared by up to three people. The prize carries a medal, a diploma and a cash award, formally presented in December. Last year's Medicine prize went to Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their work on peripheral immune tolerance, which explains how the immune system avoids attacking healthy tissue.
Why "favourites" are guesses
Nominations are secret. Srpske Novine notes that the best-known list of likely winners comes from Clarivate, which names highly cited researchers each year and says its list is not a forecast. For Medicine in 2026 it named work on the GLP-1 hormone, on optical coherence tomography, and on immune-system adhesion receptors. Treat these as talking points, not predictions. The prize is also not awarded after death, which narrows who can be named.
The prizes are presented on December 10, 2026, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
Sources
- India Today, "2026 Nobel Prize announcements to begin today with Medicine award", October 5, 2026: https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/nobel-prize-2026-medicine-announcement-time-india-alfred-autoimmune-stockholm-3009593-2026-10-05
- Srpske Novine, "Nobel Prize 2026: Medicine Monday, Peace on Friday", October 4, 2026: https://srpske.rs/en/news/nauka/2026/10/04/nobel-prize-2026-schedule-medicine-monday-peace-friday
- NobelPrize.org, prize announcement dates: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/about/prize-announcement-dates/ (listed by search; we did not read its full page)
Facts checked: October 5, 2026, before the Medicine announcement.