The Geography of Nobel Prize Selection

Five countries account for over 80% of Nobel Prize–winning discoveries. Because high-prestige recognition redirects resources and talent, such concentration can be self-reinforcing, yet whether it originates in institutional design or individual evaluator behavior is unknown. We decomposed Nobel selection into a five-layer network spanning 8,134 individuals, 514,111 edges, and five prize categories (1901–1975). The Swedish and Norwegian bodies that oversee Nobel selection assembled a geographically diverse nominator pool, yet within it, nominators select same-country nominees 4.85 times as often as expected (p < 0.001), from 8.58 times in Literature to 3.01 times in Physics. This concentration persisted as the nominee pool diversified over seven decades. Geographic sorting enters at the discretionary nomination decision, not the institutional pipeline—a specific, targetable point in the selection process.