A satirical prize with a playful approach to scientific research is not playing around when it comes to the safety of its guests, opting to relocate its annual ceremony to Europe in order to ensure the safety of attendees.
The 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (yes, that’s what they’re calling it) will be held in Zurich, Switzerland, in September. The award ceremony has been held in Massachusetts for the past 35 years, but growing hostility toward international travelers entering the U.S. prompted a change of location.
“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country,” Marc Abrahams, founder and emcee of the ceremony and editor of The Annals of Improbable Research magazine, said in an emailed statement. “We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the USA this year.”
Moving mountains
Since 1991, winners of the Ig Nobels have traveled to the U.S. to collect their prize for weird and humorous research that also “makes people think.”
This past year, however, it has become increasingly difficult for international travelers entering the U.S. In 2025, four out of the 10 Ig Nobel Prize winners chose not to travel to the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and freedom of speech. In March 2025, a French scientist was denied entry into the U.S. after immigration officers at the airport searched his phone and found messages criticizing the current administration.
As a result, the founders of the Ig Nobel Prize thought it would be best to avoid U.S. immigration altogether. The past awards ceremonies were held at Harvard University, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Boston University.
This upcoming ceremony will be held in collaboration with institutions of the ETH Domain and the University of Zurich. “The city of Zurich and its institutions rapidly moved mountains (only metaphorically—in Switzerland it is illegal to physically move mountains) and committed to make this possible,” Abrahams said. “Switzerland has nurtured many unexpected good things—Albert Einstein’s physics, the world economy, and the cuckoo clock leap to mind—and is again helping the world appreciate improbable people and ideas.”
For future ceremonies, the event will be held in Zurich every second year (with the next one scheduled for 2028). During the odd-numbered years, the organizers will host the ceremony in a different city in Europe. “In that respect, it will be a little like the Eurovision Song Contest with a base in Zurich,” Abrahams said.
Don’t give up on Boston
Although the ceremonies are leaving home for a new European base, the organizers are still keeping Boston at heart.
This year, there will be an event held in Boston to celebrate the winners a few weeks after the main ceremony. “We are merely ensuring that the winners can travel and meet. Despite the current strange winds, science and scientists and the public’s love of science are very much alive and kicking in the USA,” Abrahams said.
Last year’s Ig Nobel Prize winners included a team from Italy who investigated the phase transition of Cacio e Pepe sauce when it clumps into an unappealing, goopy liquid, an international team that studied the pizza preferences of different lizard groups, and a European team that demonstrated alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak in a foreign language.
Related article: Poop Knives, Gassed-Up Gators, and More Absurd Science From the 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes
