United States Visa Concerns Force Ig Nobels to Move Ceremony to Zurich

Organizers of the annual Ig Nobels announced the awards will move from the United States to Europe for the first time, citing concerns about winners and others being able to obtain visas and attend the ceremony.

“Every year, we have a blast covering a fresh crop of winners of the Ig Nobel prizes”

Ars Technica

The 36th annual ceremony is set to be held in Zurich after Marc Abrahams, the event’s master of ceremonies and editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, said “During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country.”

Ars Technica

The decision was framed as a response to travel barriers that could affect new winners and international journalists who cover the event.

The move will make Zurich the host of the 36th Ig Nobel ceremony, a shift from the event’s long-standing pattern of U.S. venues.

The awards are traditionally staged in September a few weeks before the Nobel Prizes and “Winners have for the past 35 years traveled to the United States to collect their prizes.”

NewsBytes

Organizers noted that in the previous year several winners declined to travel to Boston, underscoring the practical impact of travel and visa restrictions on participation.

Organizers and multiple reports linked the venue change to the broader U.S. immigration environment under President Donald Trump, saying the decision comes “amid President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration.”

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Radio LFM

Coverage across outlets described that crackdown as targeting undocumented migrants and holders of student and visitor exchange visas, creating an environment that the Ig Nobel organizers judged unsafe or impractical for international participants.

Organizers said the Zurich ceremony will be produced in collaboration with Swiss academic institutions, and that Zurich will host the event every other year while other European cities will host in between.

The 2026 ceremony is being produced with “institutions of the ETH Domain, a domain of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and the University of Zurich,” and Abrahams said the itinerary will alternate between Zurich and other European locations.

Scranton Times-Tribune

Participants and past winners responded with a mix of regret and welcome: the ceremony’s move was noted alongside profiles of last year’s quirky winners — research on painting cows with zebra-like stripes, pizza preferences of lizards, alcohol improving foreign-language speaking, and fingernail growth studies.

“The annual Ig Nobel awards, a whimsical celebration of quirky scientific achievements, are set to migrate from the United States to Europe for the first time in their history”

SSBCrack News

A Swiss past winner, Milo Puhan, welcomed the relocation, saying “The Ig Nobel Prize makes research visible, and does so with a wink.”

SSBCrack News

Organizers emphasized the awards’ long history of blending humour with unexpected scientific insight even as logistical barriers forced the venue change.