Meet the Elite: Nobel Symposia and Scientific Exclusivity

In the postwar era scientific conferences became ubiquitous and increasingly very large. As a reaction to this development, the Nobel Foundation in 1965 instituted the self-consciously elitist Nobel Symposia, still a going concern with around 160 meetings organized so far. The areas covered by the Nobel Symposia have mainly been those represented by the Nobel Prizes, including the prize in economic science founded in 1969. But issues of broader intellectual and social significance have sometimes been in focus as well. Using a frontstage-backstage approach this paper will examine the origins of the symposia – how they were conceived from a scientific as well as a political perspective, how support for the project was established nationally and internationally, and how the first symposia were organized and staged. A central question is that of exclusivity, how the symposia were imagined and staged as platforms for elite science and as a breeding ground for future elites. Particular attention will be paid to the 1969 symposium on “The place of values in a world of facts” which constituted the first but not the last example of how the symposia were used to stage more broadly conceived elite summits grappling with issues seen as important from the perspective of global development.