Wolf Prize

History

The prize is awarded in Israel by the Wolf Foundation, founded by Ricardo Wolf, a German-born inventor and former Cuban ambassador to Israel. It is awarded in six fields: Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine, and Physics, and an Arts prize that rotates between architecture, music, painting, and sculpture. Each prize consists of a diploma and US$100,000. The awards ceremony typically takes place at a session in the Knesset.

The Wolf Prizes in physics and chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize. The prize in physics has gained a reputation for identifying future winners of the Nobel Prize – from the 26 prizes awarded between 1978 and 2010, fourteen winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize, five of those in the following year.

In medicine, the prize is probably the third most prestigious, after the Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award. Until the establishment of the Abel Prize, the Wolf Prize was probably the closest equivalent of a "Nobel Prize in Mathematics", since the more prestigious Fields Medal was only awarded every four years to mathematicians under forty years old. In agriculture, the prize has likewise been equated to a "Nobel Prize in Agriculture".National Research Council: "National Research Initiative: A Vital Competitive Grants Program in Food, Fiber and Natural-resources Research", page 155, National Academies Press, 2000

The most recent Wolf Prize was awarded in 2025 to:

• Agriculture—Jonathan Jones, Jeffery Dangl, and Brian Staskawicz "for groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants".

• Chemistry—Helmut Schwarz "for quantifying reactive species in the gas phase to solve fundamental problems in catalysis".

• Mathematics—No award

• Medicine—Pamela J. Bjorkman "for pioneering innovative strategies to overcome viral defenses through novel antibody-focused approaches".

• Physics—James P. Eisenstein, Jainendra K. Jain, and Mordehai Heiblum "for advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields".

• Architecture—Tiantian Xu "for her architecture that transformed villages throughout China economically, socially, and culturally".

Laureates per country

Below is a chart of all laureates per country (updated to 2023 laureates). Laureates with multiple citizenship are counted.

References

References

1. (November 1980). "Faculty Notes". Cornell University.
2. "Physicsworld.com: Wolf prize goes to particle theorists".
3. Basolo, F: "From Coello to Inorganic Chemistry: A Lifetime of Reactions", page 65, Springer, 2002
4. . (2019). ["IREG List of International Academic Awards"](https://ireg-observatory.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ireg-list-academic-awards.pdf). *[[IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence]]*.