Satirical Science Awards Leave US for Europe Over Visa Worries

The Ig Nobel Awards, which celebrate quirky scientific research, are relocating from the United States to Switzerland for the first time in 35 years. Organizers cite safety concerns for international attendees seeking US travel visas under current immigration policies.

The Ig Nobel Awards, known for celebrating unusual scientific research with humor, are departing the United States for the first time in their 35-year history due to visa-related safety concerns for international participants, organizers revealed Monday.

The satirical science ceremony, sponsored by the Annals of Improbable Research publication, will hold its 36th annual event in Zurich rather than its traditional September location in the US, just ahead of the genuine Nobel Prize announcements.

“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country,” said Marc Abrahams, the event’s host and magazine editor, in correspondence with The Associated Press. “We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the USA this year.”

The relocation follows President Donald Trump’s extensive immigration enforcement measures, which target both undocumented immigrants and individuals holding student or visitor exchange documentation.

For more than three decades, research winners have journeyed to America to accept their awards amid a shower of paper airplanes. Previous year’s honorees included Japanese scientists investigating whether zebra-stripe paint on cattle deters fly bites, and researchers from Africa and Europe examining lizards’ pizza preferences.

The current year’s recipients, recognized across ten categories, feature European scientists who discovered alcohol consumption can enhance foreign language speaking abilities, plus a researcher who monitored fingernail growth patterns for decades.

However, four out of ten winners declined to attend last year’s Boston ceremony. Past events have taken place at prestigious venues including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University.

This year’s celebration is being coordinated with ETH Domain institutions, part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology network, along with the University of Zurich, according to Abrahams.

“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,” he noted.

Milo Puhan, a University of Zurich epidemiologist and 2017 Swiss Ig Nobel recipient, expressed enthusiasm for hosting the ceremony. “The Ig Nobel Prize makes research visible, and does so with a wink,” Puhan stated, referencing his award-winning work that “showed that playing the didgeridoo trains the muscles and structures that keep the upper airways open, thereby reducing nighttime snoring and the severity of sleep apnea syndrome.”

Abrahams announced the ceremony will alternate between Zurich every other year and various European cities in between years.

No current plans exist for returning the awards ceremony to American soil.