About The Ig® Nobel Prizes

This PBS NewsHour Weekend video explains the essence of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

"The Stinker", the official mascot of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

Every September, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1100 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the new winners step forward to accept their Prizes.  These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates. Thousands more, around the world, watch our live online broadcast.

CEREMONY: The 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen in September, 2019, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Tickets will go on sale in July exclusively from the Harvard Box Office.

LATEST NEWS: For recent bits of Ig Nobel news, see the Ig Nobel portion of our blog.

PAST CEREMONIES: The 28th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony happened on Thursday, September 13, 2018. Videos of this and many other past ceremonies are archived on our YouTube channel and in the web pages devoted to each individual ceremony year. 

"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