The Norwegian Nobel Institute

The Norwegian Nobel Institute was established 1 February, 1904, tasked with supporting the Nobel Committee in its review of nominations and candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. According to §12 of the Nobel Foundation statutes, "each Nobel Institute shall be under the leadership of the prize-awarding body that established it." The Director of the Institute is the Nobel Committee's permanent secretary, and the Institute can be regarded as the Committee's secretariat. The events in December are all planned and coordinated through this office. For the first few years The Norwegian The Nobel Institute rented offices in Victoria Terrasse in downtown Oslo, but by May 1905 the move was made to the present building in Henrik Ibsens gate 51. The award ceremony was moved there the same year, having previously taken place in the Storting (Norwegian Parliament). The building, originally constructed in 1867 as a private residence, had by then undergone extensive renovation. The Institute contains offices, a meeting room, the Grand Hall, a research department, library and reading room. The Nobel Committee meets in a special meeting room devoted exclusively to this purpose. The tradition has gradually developed of using the Institute’s Grand Hall both for the October announcement of the year's Peace Prize in October and for the Laureate's press conference on 9 December, the day before the award ceremony in Oslo City Hall. The Nobel Peace Prize is always awarded on 10 December, the day Alfred Nobel passed away. The Nobel Institute library opened to the public in September 1905. Today it is a specialized library containing some 204.000 volumes in the fields of international history and politics since 1800, international law, peace studies, and international economics.