Infographic – Immigrants Boost U.S. Nobel Prizes

Click on image for full-size view (Statista)

10 Oct. 2020. This week, the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden began announcing its annual prizes, with the sciences among the first Nobel prizes awarded each year. The business research company Statista compiled data from the foundation’s web site showing the U.S. dominates Nobel prizes in the sciences — physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics — and immigrants to the U.S. contribute a large chunk of those awards.

Since 1969, the Nobel Foundation awarded 281 prizes in the sciences to researchers at institutions in the U.S. Of those 281 prize recipients, 87 or 31 percent, were awarded to individuals with immigrant status in the U.S. at the time of the award. That pattern is repeated in the U.K., where 45 researchers received Nobel prizes since 1969, and 15 or one-third of that group were immigrants.

Even a casual reader of Science & Enterprise will recognize the large presence of researchers at American institutions from other countries. And in forums and press conferences, we’ve pressed this issue among research executives from universities and industry, who note that blanket crackdowns on immigration do great harm to American science.

More from Science & Enterprise:

• Infographic – Skilled Immigrants Fill Computer Jobs
• Infographic – Immigrants Boost High-Value U.S. Start-Ups
• Infographic – America’s Immigration Advantages

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