The Ig Nobel Prize (/ˌɪɡ noʊˈbɛl/) is a satirical prize awarded annually since 1991 to promote public engagement with scientific research, its aim is to “honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.”

The name of the award is a pun on the Nobel Prize, which it parodies, and on the word “ignoble”. Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by Nobel laureates in a ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The winners also deliver public lectures. The Ig Nobel Prize monetary award is given in a solitary banknote for the amount of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars ($0.40 USD, but the banknote is worth more as a collector’s item). The previous 35 ceremonies all took place in the USA, in Cambridge/Boston. In a break from tradition, this year’s ceremony took place in Zürich, Switzerland.