canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/nobelprize.org/nobelprize

# Nobel Prize API

The Nobel Prize API v2.1 returns structured JSON for laureates and prizes from 1901 to the present, covering all six categories - physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and economic sciences. Agents can list and filter laureates, fetch a single laureate by id, list prizes with filters by year and category, and retrieve a specific prize by category and year. The API is fully public and unauthenticated, supports pagination, and is hosted at api.nobelprize.org/2.1.

## For AI agents

Read structured Nobel Prize laureate and prize records from 1901 to the present across four endpoints - laureates list and detail, prizes list and detail by category and year.

## Scope

Does not handle nominations, voting records, or non-Nobel awards - use for public Nobel laureate and prize lookups only.

## Capabilities

- List Nobel laureates with filters for year, category, and birth or death attributes via /laureates
- Fetch a single laureate's full record by id from `/laureate/{laureateID}`
- List Nobel prizes filtered by year range and category via /nobelPrizes
- Retrieve a specific prize record by category and year through `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}`
- Paginate large laureate result sets with offset and limit parameters

## Use cases

### Educational Reference Lookup

Learning platforms and reference apps need authoritative Nobel laureate records for course modules and biographical content. The /laureates and `/laureate/{laureateID}` endpoints expose every laureate from 1901 onwards with structured fields for birth, death, affiliations, and prize motivation. This replaces scraping the Nobel Prize website and gives a stable JSON contract for content pipelines.

Example prompt: Call /laureates with category=physics and year=1921 to retrieve Albert Einstein's record, then GET `/laureate/{laureateID}` for the full citation

### Annual Recap Content

Newsrooms and editorial workflows publish annual Nobel Prize recaps each October. The /nobelPrizes endpoint filtered by year returns every prize awarded that year across all six categories, with citation, motivation, and laureate links. `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}` is the direct path when only one category is needed, removing client-side filtering.

Example prompt: Call /nobelPrizes?nobelPrizeYear=2024 to list all six prizes awarded in 2024 with their laureates and motivations

### Research Affiliation Analysis

Analysts studying scientific institution productivity can query laureates by their affiliations and birth countries to track how prize-winning research clusters across universities and decades. The /laureates endpoint exposes structured affiliation data per prize, so a notebook can group, count, and rank institutions without hand-coding parsers over the Nobel website HTML.

Example prompt: Page through /laureates filtered by category=chemistry and aggregate the affiliations array per laureate into an institution count

### AI Agent Trivia and QA

An assistant answering questions like 'who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989?' can use Jentic to route the query to `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}` without writing custom URL builders. The API is anonymous so Jentic handles only retry and response shaping, while the agent gets back a structured prize record with laureates and citation.

Example prompt: Use Jentic to call `/nobelPrize/peace/1989` and return the laureate name and prize motivation to the calling agent

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/laureates` | List Nobel laureates with optional year and category filters |
| GET | `/laureate/{laureateID}` | Fetch a single laureate's full record by id |
| GET | `/nobelPrizes` | List Nobel Prizes filtered by year range and category |
| GET | `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}` | Retrieve a specific Nobel Prize by category and year |

## Key resources

- **Laureates** — List and detail records for Nobel laureates since 1901
- **Prizes** — List and detail records for Nobel Prizes by year and category

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the Nobel Prize API by hand means building requests against its versioned host (https://api.nobelprize.org/2.1), threading the laureate id or category and year into the path, and parsing its responses yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import the Nobel Prize API from the API Directory, and your agent calls it with no key to manage.
- **Permission scoping:** The Nobel Prize API is public and read-only, so scope by operation: limit the agent to the calls it needs, such as listing laureates or fetching a prize by category and year, and leave out the others unless you add them. You choose the operations it may call.
- **Credential handling:** The Nobel Prize API needs no credential, so there is nothing to store; any related configuration your Jentic One instance holds stays encrypted and out of the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'list Nobel laureates' or 'find the prize for a category and year', and Jentic returns the matching Nobel Prize operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **Wikimedia API** — Wikimedia exposes Wikipedia article content and provides extended biographical context for Nobel laureates.
- **Data.gov API** — Data.gov aggregates open datasets that pair well with Nobel Prize lookups for research and education content.
- **NCBI Datasets API** — NCBI Datasets provides scientific reference data that complements Nobel laureate records in physiology and chemistry.

## FAQ

### What authentication does the Nobel Prize API use?

The Nobel Prize API v2.1 is fully public and requires no authentication. Through Jentic the call still passes through the credential broker so retries and response normalization are consistent with authenticated APIs in the same toolchain.

### Can I get all Nobel Prizes for a specific year with the Nobel Prize API?

Yes. Call /nobelPrizes?nobelPrizeYear=YYYY to list every prize awarded that year, or `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}` for a single category-year pair. Both return citation, motivation, and laureate references.

### What are the rate limits for the Nobel Prize API?

The OpenAPI spec does not declare specific rate limits. The API is fronted by a public CDN and tolerates moderate use; let Jentic handle 429 backoff if upstream throttling occurs.

### How do I look up a specific Nobel laureate through Jentic?

Run pip install jentic, search Jentic for 'fetch a nobel laureate by id', load the `/laureate/{laureateID}` operation, supply the laureate id, and execute. The full structured record returns directly to the agent.

### Is the Nobel Prize API free to use?

Yes. The Nobel Prize API is provided free by the Nobel Prize organization for non-commercial and editorial use. Attribution to nobelprize.org is requested when redistributing the data.

### Can I filter Nobel laureates by category with the Nobel Prize API?

Yes. Pass nobelPrizeCategory=physics (or chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, economics) to /laureates along with optional year filters. Combine with offset and limit for pagination.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Nobel Prize API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which of the Nobel Prize API's four read operations the agent may call. You can allow just listing laureates via /laureates and fetching one by id via `/laureate/{laureateID}`, and leave out listing or fetching prizes through /nobelPrizes and `/nobelPrize/{category}/{year}` unless you add them. Since the API is public and read-only with no credential to store, scoping is purely a matter of which operations you expose to the agent.