Nobel Peace Prize announcement nears as Oslo weighs 287 nominees

Oslo will announce the Nobel Peace Prize winner on Friday from 287 nominations. The decision lands in the award's 125th year, sharpening focus on peace efforts amid global conflict.Stock photo used for illustrationOslo,Oct 9, 2026 10:10 ISTThe Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo, with the Norwegian Nobel Committee choosing from 287 candidates for one of the world’s most closely watched honours. A little over a quarter of the nominations are organisations, and experts say the committee usually looks at lasting peace, international fraternity and the steady work of institutions that support those goals.Forecasters have pointed to a varied field this year, including the International Space Station, emergency teams in Sudan, children’s advocates in Ukraine and two top international courts. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has also drawn attention in prediction markets, while US President Donald Trump, who is waging a war against Iran, has long coveted the prize and has repeatedly said he deserves it.Nominations can be made by a select group of people and organisations, including heads of state, national-level politicians, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Peace Prize winners and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader Mara Corina Machado won the prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her country, and was recognised as a woman "who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness". Machado later gave Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-President Nicols Maduro, but the Nobel Committee has said the honour itself cannot be transferred.This year marks the 125th anniversary of the Peace Prize. Since 1901, it has been awarded to 112 individuals and 28 institutions. The Red Cross has won it three times and the UN refugee agency twice. Of the 112 individual laureates, 20 have been women, though eight of them received the prize in the past 15 years. Education activist Malala Yousafzai remains the youngest laureate, having won at 17 in 2014. The United States has the highest number of awards, with 24 honours for its institutions or individuals, ahead of the United Kingdom with 13 and Switzerland with 11, though no American laureate has won since Barack Obama in 2009. The prize has not been awarded 19 times, mostly during the world wars. In 1948, the year Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, no prize was awarded even though he had been nominated 12 times. In 1939, a Swedish member of parliament nominated Adolf Hitler and withdrew the nomination on February 1, saying it was never meant seriously. Four other Nobel prizes were announced earlier this week. The medicine prize went to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help explain how the brain works. The physics award recognised a scientist’s work on a rare group of neutrinos, while the chemistry prize went to two scientists for work on mirror images in molecules, a discovery used in the development of many drugs. On Thursday, Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the literature prize for "bold and inventive" works that fuse the classical and the modern and blur the boundaries of poetry and prose. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday. This year’s Nobel awards carry prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor, or about USD 1.2 million, whether awarded to an individual, a small group of laureates or an organisation.Friday’s announcement will decide this year’s Peace Prize winner from a broad field of nominees, as the award marks 125 years since it was first given. With PTI Inputs- Ends