1. Each year the respective committees send individual invitations to thousands of scientists, members of academies and university professors in numerous countries, asking them to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year. Those who are competent to submit nominations are chosen in such a way that as many countries and universities as possible will be represented.

2. These prize nominations must reach the respective Nobel Committees of the Prize Awarding Institutions before February 1 of the year for which the nomination is being made.

3. The nominations received by each committee are then evaluated with the help of specially appointed experts. When the committees have made their selection among the nominated candidates and have presented their recommendations to the Prize Awarding Institutions, a vote is taken for the final choice of Laureates.

4. The choice of the year's Laureates is announced immediately after the vote in October each year.

5. The prizes are awarded at the Prize Award Ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10 (the Anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death). The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on the same day at the City Hall in Oslo, Norway.

The procedure to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prizes varies somewhat among the Prize Awarding Institutions.

Excerpts from the Special Regulations on the awarding of Nobel Prizes:

Literature
(The Swedish Academy)

The right to nominate candidates for the prize competition shall be enjoyed by members of the Swedish Academy and of other academies, institutions and societies which are similar to it in constitution and purpose; by professors of literature and of linguistics at universities and university colleges; by previous Nobel Prize Laureates for Literature and by presidents of those societies of authors that are representative of the literary production in their respective countries.