Irina Bokova, chairperson of the Miwon Peace Prize selection committee, speaks at the Grand Peace Palace at Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was named this year's winner of the Miwon Peace Prize. The nonprofit organization was founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists including Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer and is best known for its Doomsday Clock.
Organizers announced the winner on Monday, citing the group's decades-long efforts to raise awareness of existential threats and reshape how the world understands risk. The Doomsday Clock, created as a symbolic measure of how close humans are to causing their own catastrophic disruption, stands at 85 seconds to midnight as of 2026 — the closest it has ever been to the symbolic destruction represented by the end of the countdown. The Bulletin integrates threats including nuclear weapons, climate change and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence into that single global signal.
The award, established by the Kyung Hee University system and its affiliated organizations, honors individuals or institutions whose work advances peace and the future of humanity. It commemorates the legacy of Kyung Hee’s late founder Choue Young-seek, who championed peace initiatives, including the establishment of the U.N. International Day of Peace.
