Marc Abrahams holds up the 2019 Ig Nobel award at the 29th annual Ig Nobel awards ceremony at Harvard University on September 12, 2019, in Cambridge, United States. ELISE AMENDOLA / AP
The tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel awards will be held in Europe for the first time this year because the United States has become "unsafe" for international prize-winners to visit, the organizers have announced.
The awards, which celebrate the sillier side of science, have held raucous ceremonies that see the winners showered with paper aeroplanes at universities in Massachusetts since 1991. Like the Nobels they satirize, Ig Nobel laureates hail from all over the world. However, international academics have reported problems traveling to the US since President Donald Trump's second term began in early 2025.
"During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country," Ig Nobel founder Marc Abrahams said in a statement on Monday. "We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the USA this year."
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