Top 10 Most Famous Awards and Highest Honors in the World

Everyone loves getting awards! The Awards are tokens of honor that society bestows upon someone who does a great feat. No award is small but yes, there are awards which are relatively better known around the world. Here is a list of top 10 most famous awards in the whole world! These awards are not given any particular order. We have tried to include the top most awards and highest honors from various fields of knowledge and walks of life.

1. The Nobel Prize

Arguably the world’s top-most, best-known and most famous award is THE NOBEL PRIZE! Only a very select few hundred humans have been able to get a Nobel Prize. These prizes are given in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics. As if winning a Nobel Prize once was not hard enough, people like Marie Curie and Frederick Sanger won the Nobel Prize more than once. These prizes were established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. How much is the Nobel Prize money? Well, at present each prize comes with 9 million Swedish kronor (nearly one million US Dollars). If there are multiple winners, the prize money is divided among the recipients as per the decision of Nobel Committee.

2. The Academy Awards

Popularly known as Oscars, these coveted awards are given for cinematic achievements. Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director are  among the most awaited announcements when Oscars are given away every year. These awards are given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Winners get a golden statuette depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style. The Oscars award ceremony is broadcast live and get more than a billion viewers worldwide.

3. The Pulitzer Prize

Established by Joseph Pulitzer, these prizes are given in fields of  newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature and musical composition. Winner get a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. According to the Pulitzer website, only American citizens are eligible to apply for the Prizes in Books, Drama and Music (with the exception of the History category, in which the book must be a history of the United States but the author may be of any nationality). Permanent residents are ineligible. For the Journalism competition, entrants may be of any nationality but work must have appeared in U.S. newspaper, magazine or news site that publishes regularly.

4. Fields Medal

Often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics, the Fields Medal is awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age every four years. The award has been named in honour of the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, who funded the award. The winners get a cash prize of CA$ 15,000. Other major awards in mathematics, such as the Abel Prize and the Chern Medal, have larger monetary prizes compared to the Fields Medal.

5. The Grammy Awards

Originally called Gramophone Award, the Grammys are among the most coveted awards in the American entertainment circles. The Grammys are given for achievements in the music industry.

6. Ramon Magsaysay Award

Also known as Asia’s Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award was established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay’s example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. Recipients of the Magsaysay Award are generally from Asian countries.

7. Booker Prize

The Booker Prize is among the top literary awards in the world. It is given for the best original novel, written in the English language, and published in the UK and Ireland. This prize is so prestigious that even making to its “short list” and even to the “long list” is considered to be a mark of distinction. The winner gets GBP 50,000 as prize money.

8. Michelin Star

Michelin stars are a rating system used by the red Michelin Guide to grade restaurants on their quality. Getting a Michelin star is considered to be one of the highest honor in the restaurant industry. According to the Guide, one star signifies “a very good restaurant”, two stars are “excellent cooking that is worth a detour”, and three stars mean “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey”. The listing of starred restaurants is updated once a year.

9. The Merlin Award

This is probably the highest honor in the field of magic! Sometimes referred to as the Academy Award of magic, the Merlin Award lacks much of the oversight that enhance the credibility of awards in other industries.

10. Turing Award

The annual A.M. Turing Award is the highest distinction in computer science, or the “Nobel Prize of Computing”. The award is named after Alan Turing, the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. The Turning Award carries a prize of US$1 million, with financial support provided by Google.