Crafoord Prize facts for kids

The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foundation in Lund. The Academy is responsible for selecting the Crafoord Laureates. The prize is awarded in four categories: astronomy and mathematics; geosciences; biosciences, with particular emphasis on ecology; and polyarthritis, the disease from which Holger severely suffered in his last years.

According to the Academy, "these disciplines are chosen so as to complement those for which the Nobel Prizes are awarded". Only one award is given each year, according to a rotating scheme – astronomy and mathematics; then geosciences; then biosciences. A Crafoord Prize in polyarthritis is only awarded when a special committee decides that substantial progress in the field has been made. The recipient of the Crafoord Prize is announced each year in mid-January; on Crafoord Days in April or May, the prize is presented by the King of Sweden, who also presents the Nobel Prizes at the ceremony in December. As of 2024^[update], the prize money is 6,000,000 kr (or US$700,000). The prize has been compared to the Nobel Prize for its prestige in the geosciences.

The inaugural laureates, Vladimir Arnold and Louis Nirenberg, were cited by the Academy for their work in the field of non-linear differential equations. As of 2022, the winners have predominantly been men. The first woman to be awarded the prize was astronomer Andrea Ghez in 2012.

Laureates

The Crafoord prize has been awarded to the following scientists:

Year	Category	Image	Laureate	Nationality	Rationale	Ref.
1982	Mathematics		Vladimir Arnold	Russian	“for outstanding achievements in the theory of non-linear differential equations”
			Louis Nirenberg	Canadian / American
1983	Geosciences	—	Edward Norton Lorenz	American	“for fundamental contributions to the field of geophysical hydrodynamics, which in a unique way have contributed to a deeper understanding of the large-scale motions of the atmosphere and the sea”
			Henry Stommel	American
1984	Biosciences		Daniel H. Janzen	American	“for his imaginative and stimulating studies on co-evolution which have inspired many researchers to further work in this field”
1985	Astronomy		Lyman Spitzer	American	“for fundamental pioneering studies of practically every aspect of the interstellar medium, culminating in the results obtained using the Copernicus satellite”
1986	Geosciences		Claude Allègre	French	“for pioneering studies of isotope geochemical relations and the geological interpretations that these results permit”
		—	Gerald J. Wasserburg	American
1987	Biosciences	—	Eugene Odum	American	“for pioneering contributions within the field of ecosystem ecology”
		—	Howard T. Odum	American
1988	Mathematics		Pierre Deligne	Belgian	“for fundamental research in algebraic geometry”
			Alexander Grothendieck	French
1989	Geosciences		James Van Allen	American	“for his pioneering exploration of space, in particular the discovery of the energetic particles trapped in the geomagnetic field which forms the radiation belts - the Van Allen belts - around the planet Earth”
1990	Biosciences		Paul R. Ehrlich	American	“for his research on the dynamics and genetics of fragmented populations and the importance of the distribution pattern for their survival probabilities”
			E. O. Wilson	American	“for the theory of island biogeography and other research on species diversity and community dynamics on islands and in other habitats with differing degrees of isolation”
1991	Astronomy	—	Allan Sandage	American	“for his important contributions to the study of galaxies, their populations of stars, clusters and nebulae, their evolution, the velocity-distance relation (or Hubble relation), and its evolution over time”
1992	Geosciences	—	Adolf Seilacher	German	“for his innovative research concerning the evolution of life in interaction with the environment as documented in the geological record”
1993	Biosciences	—	W. D. Hamilton	British	“for his theories concerning kin selection and genetic relationship as a prerequisite for the evolution of altruistic behavior”
			Seymour Benzer	American	“for his pioneering genetical and neurophysiological studies on behavioural mutants in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster”
1994	Mathematics		Simon Donaldson	British	"for his fundamental investigations in four-dimensional geometry through application of instantos in particular his new discovery of new differential invariants"
			Shing-Tung Yau	American	“for his development of non-linear techniques in differential geometry leading the solution of several outstanding problems”
1995	Geosciences	—	Willi Dansgaard	Danish	“for fundamental work on developing and applying isotope geological analysis methods for the study of climatic variations during the Quaternary period”
		—	Nicholas Shackleton	British
1996	Biosciences		Robert May	Australian	“for his pioneering ecological research concerning theoretical analysis of the dynamics of populations, communities and ecosystems”
1997	Astronomy		Fred Hoyle	British	“for pioneering contributions to the study of nuclear processes in stars and stellar evolution”
		—	Edwin Ernest Salpeter	American
1998	Geosciences		Don L. Anderson	American	“for fundamental contributions to our knowledge of the structures and processes in the interior of the Earth”
			Adam M. Dziewonski	Polish / American
1999	Biosciences		Ernst Mayr	American	“for fundamental contributions to the conceptual development of evolutionary biology”
			John Maynard Smith	British
		—	George Christopher Williams	American
2000	Polyarthritis	—	Marc Feldmann	British	“for identification of TNF blockade as an effective therapeutic principle in rheumatoid arthrits”
			Ravinder N. Maini	British
2001	Mathematics		Alain Connes	French	“for penetrating work on the theory of operator algebras and for having been a founder of non-commutative geometry”
2002	Geosciences	—	Dan McKenzie	British	“for fundamental contributions to the understanding of the Dynamics of the Lithosphere, particularly Plate Tectonics, Sedimentary Basin Formation and Mantle Melting”
2003	Biosciences		Carl Woese	American	“for his discovery of a third domain of life”
2004	Polyarthritis	—	Eugene C. Butcher	American	“for their studies of the molecular mechanisms involved in migration of white blood cells in health and disease”
		—	Timothy A. Springer	American
2005	Astronomy		James E. Gunn	American	“for contributions towards understanding the large-scale structure of the Universe”
			James Peebles	American
			Martin Rees	British
2006	Geosciences		Wallace Smith Broecker	American	“for his innovative and pioneering research on the operation of the global carbon cycle within the ocean – atmosphere – biosphere system, and its interaction with climate”
2007	Biosciences	—	Robert Trivers	American	“for his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation”
2008	Astronomy		Rashid Alievich Sunyaev	Russian	“for his decisive contributions to high energy astrophysics and cosmology, in particular processes and dynamics around black holes and neutron stars and demonstration of the diagnostic power of structures in the background radiation”
	Mathematics		Maxim Kontsevich	Russian	“for their important contributions to mathematics inspired by modern theoretical physics”
			Edward Witten	American
2009	Polyarthritis		Charles Dinarello	American	“for their pioneering work to isolate interleukins, determine their properties and explore their role in the onset of inflammatory diseases”
			Tadamitsu Kishimoto	Japanese
			Toshio Hirano	Japanese
2010	Geosciences		Walter Munk	American	“for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth’s dynamics”
2011	Biosciences		Ilkka Hanski	Finnish	"for his pioneering studies on how spatial variation affects the dynamics of animal and plant populations"
2012	Astronomy		Reinhard Genzel	German	"for their observations of the stars orbiting the galactic centre, indicating the presence of a supermassive black hole"
			Andrea M. Ghez	American
	Mathematics		Jean Bourgain	Belgian	"for their brilliant and groundbreaking work in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, ergodic theory, number theory, combinatorics, functional analysis and theoretical computer science"
			Terence Tao	Australian / American
2013	Polyarthritis		Peter K. Gregersen	American	"for their discoveries concerning the role of different genetic factors and their interactions with environmental factors in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and clinical management of rheumatoid arthritis"
			Lars Klareskog	Swedish
			Robert J. Winchester [de]	American
2014	Geosciences	—	Peter Molnar	American	"for his ground-breaking contribution to the understanding of global tectonics, in particular the deformation of continents and the structure and evolution of mountain ranges, as well as the impact of tectonic processes on ocean-atmosphere circulation and climate"
2015	Biosciences	—	Richard Lewontin	American	"for their pioneering analyses and fundamental contributions to the understanding of genetic polymorphism"
			Tomoko Ohta	Japanese
2016	Astronomy		Roy Kerr	New Zealand	"for fundamental work concerning rotating black holes and their astrophysical consequences"
			Roger Blandford	American
	Mathematics		Yakov Eliashberg	American	"for the development of contact and symplectic topology and groundbreaking discoveries of rigidity and flexibility phenomena"
2017	Polyarthritis		Shimon Sakaguchi	Japanese	"for their discoveries relating to regulatory T cells, which counteract harmful immune reactions in arthritis and other autoimmune diseases"
			Fred Ramsdell	American
			Alexander Rudensky	American
2018	Geosciences		Syukuro Manabe	Japanese / American	"for fundamental contributions to understanding the role of atmospheric trace gases in Earth’s climate system"
			Susan Solomon	American
2019	Biosciences		Sallie W. Chisholm	American	"for the discovery and pioneering studies of the most abundant photosynthesising organism on Earth, Prochlorococcus"
2020	Astronomy		Eugene N. Parker	American	"for pioneering and fundamental studies of the solar wind and magnetic fields from stellar to galactic scales"
	Mathematics		Enrico Bombieri	Italian / American	"for outstanding and influential contributions in all the major areas of mathematics, particularly number theory, analysis and algebraic geometry"
2021	Polyarthritis		Daniel L. Kastner	American	"for establishing the concept of autoinflammatory diseases"
2022	Geosciences		Andrew H. Knoll	American	"for fundamental contributions to our understanding of the first three billion years of life on Earth and life’s interactions with the physical environment through time"
2023	Biosciences	—	Dolph Schluter	Canadian	"for fundamental contributions to the understanding of adaptive radiation and ecological speciation"
2024	Astronomy	—	Douglas Gough	British	"for developing the methods of asteroseismology and their application to the study of the interior of the Sun and of other stars"
			Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard	Danish
			Conny Aerts	Belgian
	Mathematics		Claire Voisin	French	"for outstanding contributions to complex and algebraic geometry, including Hodge theory, algebraic cycles, and hyperkähler geometry"

See also

In Spanish: Premio Crafoord para niños

• List of general science and technology awards
• List of prizes known as the Nobel or the highest honors of a field#Geosciences, agricultural sciences and environmental sciences
• The Kyoto Prize
• Prizes named after people