Craford Award

The Crafoord Prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to eminent scientists whose fields of study do not correspond to the classic Nobel prize categories, such as: mathematics, Earth sciences, life sciences (particularly those related to ecology and evolution), astronomy, etc.

This prestigious prize, considered the "floating Nobel", began to be awarded in 1982 in honor of the Swedish industrialist Holger Crafoord (1908-1982), who died that same year. The ceremony takes place every September 24, and it is the king of Sweden himself who delivers it. Its economic amount amounts to 5 million Swedish crowns (about 500,000 dollars).

The following scientists have received this award:

1982: Vladimir Arnold and Louis Nirenberg (mathematics)

1983: Edward Lorenz and Henry Stommel (Earth sciences)

1984: Daniel Janzen (sciences of life)

1985: Lyman Spitzer Jr. (astronomy)

1986: Claude Allègre and Gerald J. Wasserburg (Earth sciences)

1987: Eugene P. Odum and Howard T. Odum (Life sciences)

1988: P. Deligne (the award was delivered along with A. Grothendieck who rejected it) (mathematics)

1989: James Van Allen (astronomy)

1990: Paul R. Ehrlich and Edward Osborne Wilson (Life sciences)

1991: Allan Sandage (Astronomy)

1992: Adolf Seilacher (sciences of life)

1993: William Donald Hamilton and Seymour Benzer (sciences of life)

1994: S. Donaldson and Shing-Tung Yau (mathmatics)

1995: Willy Dansgaard and Nicholas John Shackleton (Earth sciences)

1996: Robert May (sciences of life)

1997: Fred Hoyle and Edwin E. Salpeter (astronomy)

1998: Don L. Anderson and Adam M. Dziewonski (Earth sciences)

1999: E. Mayr, John Maynard Smith and George C. Williams (Life sciences)

2000: Marc Feldmann and Ravinder N. Maini (Life sciences)

2001: Alain Connes (mathematics)

2002: Dan McKenzie (Earth sciences)

2003: Carl Woese (sciences of life)

2004: Eugene Butcher and Timothy Springer

2005: James Gunn, Fr. James E. Peebles, and Martin Rees (Astronomy)

2006: Wallace S. Broecker (Earth sciences)

2007: Robert L. Trivers (sciences of life)

2008: Rashid Sunyaev (Astronomy), Maxim Kontsevich, and Edward Witten (mathematics)

2009: Charles A. Dinarello, Tadamitsu Kishimoto, and Toshio Hirano (Poliarthritis) and Magnus Bäck

2010: Walter Munk (Earth sciences)

2011: Ilkka Hanski (sciences of life)

2012: Reinhard Genzel and Andrea M. Ghez (astronomy), and Jean Bourgain and Terence Tao (mathematics)

2013: Peter K. Gregersen, Lars Klareskog and Robert J. Winchester (Life sciences)

2014: Peter Molnar (Earth sciences)

2015: Richard Lewontin and Tomoko Ohta (sciences of life)

2016: Roy Kerr, Roger Blandford (astronomy) and Yakov Eliashberg (mathematics)

2017: Simon Sakaguchi, Fred Ramsdell and Alexander Rudensky (Poliarthritis)

2018: Syukuro Manabe and Susan Solomon (Earth sciences)