1. The Kyoto Prize is an international award to honor those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of mankind. The Prize is presented annually in each of the following three categories: Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy.

2. Laureates shall in principle be individuals (one person per category). However, in special cases a single Prize may be shared among more than one person. Selection is made without regard to nationality, race, gender, age, or religion. Each laureate is presented with a diploma, a 20K gold Kyoto Prize medal, and prize money of 100 million yen per category.

3. Each Kyoto Prize category comprises four fields. The specific fields to be awarded in a given year are determined each year.

4. Candidates for the Kyoto Prize are nominated by official Kyoto Prize nominators, who are selected annually by the Inamori Foundation from among recognized domestic and international authorities.

5. Selection of the laureates is conducted fairly and impartially by the Kyoto Prize Selection Organization, comprising three steps: a separate Kyoto Prize Selection Committee and Kyoto Prize Committee for each category, plus the Kyoto Prize Executive Committee.

6. The Kyoto Prize laureates are announced each June; the Kyoto Prize presentation ceremony and related events are held in Kyoto, Japan, each November.

The Kyoto Prize laureates:

Basic sciences

Biological sciences

• 1986: George Evelyn Hutchinson (U.S., 1903 – 1987)
• 1990: Jane Goodall (U.K., born 1934)
• 1993: William Donald Hamilton (U.K., 1936–2000)
• 1997: Daniel Hunt Janzen (U.S., born 1939)
• 2001: John Maynard Smith (U.K., 1920–2004)
• 2005: Simon Asher Levin (U.S., born 1941)
• 2009: Peter Grant (U.K., born 1936) and Rosemary Grant (U.K., born 1936)
• 2013: Masatoshi Nei (U.S., born 1931)
• 2017: Graham Farquhar (Australia, b.1947)
• 2022: Bryan T. Grenfell (U.K./U.S., b. 1954)

Mathematical sciences

• 1985: Claude Elwood Shannon (U.S.A., 1916-2001)
• 1989: Israel Moiseevich Gelfand (Russia, 1913–2009)
• 1994: André Weil (France, 1906–1998)
• 1998: Kiyoshi Itō (Japan, 1915–2008)
• 2002: Mikhail Gromov (France, born 1943)
• 2006: Hirotsugu Akaike (Japan, 1927–2009)
• 2010: László Lovász (Hungary, born 1948)
• 2014: Edward Witten (U.S., born 1951)
• 2018: Masaki Kashiwara (Japan, b. 1947)

Earth and planetary sciences, astronomy and astrophysics

• 1987: Jan Hendrik Oort (Netherlands, 1900 – 92)
• 1991: Edward Norton Lorenz (U.S., 1917–2008)
• 1995: Chūshirō Hayashi (Japan, 1920–2010)
• 1999: Walter Heinrich Munk (U.S., born 1917)
• 2003: Eugene Newman Parker (U.S., born 1927)
• 2007: Hiroo Kanamori (Japan, born 1936)
• 2011: Rashid Alievich Sunyaev (Russia, born 1943)
• 2015: Michel Mayor (Switzerland, b. 1942)
• 2019: James Gunn (U.S., b. 1938)

Life sciences

• 1992: Yasutomi Nishizuka (Japan, 1932–2004)
• 1996: Mario Renato Capecchi (U.S., born 1937)
• 2000: Walter Jakob Gehring (Switzerland, born 1939)
• 2004: Alfred G. Knudson (U.S., born 1922)
• 2008: Anthony James Pawson (Canada / U.K., born 1952)
• 2012: Yoshinori Ohsumi (Japan, born 1945)
• 2016: Tasuku Honjo (Japan, b. 1942)
• 2021: Robert G. Roeder (U.S., b.1942)

Cognitive science

• 1988: Avram Noam Chomsky (U.S., born 1928)

Advanced technology

Electronics

• 1985: Rudolf Emil Kálmán (U.S., born 1930 in Budapest, Hungary)
• 1989: Amos E. Joel, Jr. (U.S., 1918–2008)
• 1993: Jack St. Clair Kilby (U.S., 1923–2005)
• 1997: Federico Faggin (Italy, born 1941), Marcian Edward Hoff Jr. (U.S., born 1937), Stanley Mazor (U.S., born 1941) Masatoshi Shima (Japan, born 1943)
• 2001: Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (Russia, 1930-2019), Izuo Hayashi (Japan, 1922–2005), Morton B. Panish (U.S., born 1929)
• 2005: George H. Heilmeier (U.S., born 1936)
• 2009: Isamu Akasaki (Japan, born 1929)
• 2013: Robert H. Dennard (U.S., born 1932)
• 2017: Takashi Mimura (Japan. b. 1944)
• 2022: Carver Mead (U.S., b. 1934)

Biotechnology and medical technology

• 1986: Nicole Marthe Le Douarin (France, born 1930)
• 1990: Sydney Brenner (South Africa, 1927-2019)
• 1994: Paul Christian Lauterbur (U.S., 1929–2007)
• 1998: Kurt Wüthrich (Switzerland, born 1938)
• 2002: Leroy Edward Hood (U.S., born 1938)
• 2006: Leonard Herzenberg (U.S., 1931-2013)
• 2010: Shinya Yamanaka (Japan, born 1962)
• 2014: Robert S. Langer (U.S., born 1948)
• 2018: Karl Deisseroth (U.S., b. 1971)

Materials science and engineering

• 1987: Morris Cohen (U.S., 1911–2005)
• 1991: Michael Szwarc (U.S., 1909–2000)
• 1995: George William Gray (U.K., 1926-2013)
• 1999: W. David Kingery (U.S., 1926–2000)
• 2003: George McClelland Whitesides (U.S., born 1939)
• 2007: Hiroo Inokuchi (Japan, 1927–2014)
• 2011: John Werner Cahn (U.S., 1928-2016)
• 2015: Toyoki Kunitake (Japan, b. 1936)
• 2019: Ching W. Tang (Hong Kong, b.1947)

Information science == Knuth

• 1988: John McCarthy (U.S., 1927–2011)
• 1992: Maurice Vincent Wilkes (U.K., 1913–2010)
• 1996: Donald Ervin Knuth (U.S., born 1938)
• 2000: Sir Antony Hoare (U.K., born 1934)
• 2004: Alan Curtis Kay (U.S., born 1940)
• 2008: Richard M. Karp (U.S., born 1935)
• 2012: Ivan Edward Sutherland (U.S., born 1938)
• 2016: Takeo Kanade (Japan, b. 1945)
• 2021: Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (Hong Kong, b. 1946)

Arts and philosophy

Music

• 1985: Olivier Messiaen (France, 1908–1992)
• 1989: John Cage, Jr. (U.S., 1912–1992)
• 1993: Witold Lutosławski (Poland, 1913–1994)
• 1997: Iannis Xenakis (France, 1922–2001)
• 2001: György Ligeti (Austria, 1923–2006)
• 2005: Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Austria, 1929–2016)
• 2009: Pierre Boulez (France, 1925–2016)
• 2013: Cecil Taylor (U.S., 1929–2018)
• 2017: Richard Taruskin (U.S., b. 1947)
• 2022: Zakir Hussain (India, b. 1951)

Arts

• 1986: Isamu Noguchi (U.S., 1904–1988)
• 1990: Renzo Piano (Italy, born 1937)
• 1995: Roy Lichtenstein (U.S., 1923–1997)
• 1998: Nam June Paik (U.S., 1932–2006)
• 2002: Tadao Ando (Japan, born 1941)
• 2006: Issey Miyake (Japan, born 1938)
• 2010: William Kentridge (South Africa, born 1955)
• 2014: Fukumi Shimura (Japan, born 1924)
• 2018: Joan Jonas (U.S., b. 1936)

Theater, cinema

• 1987: Andrzej Wajda (Poland, 1926–2016)
• 1991: Peter Stephen Paul Brook (U.K., 1925– 2022)
• 1994: Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1910–1998)
• 1999: Maurice Béjart (France, 1927–2007)
• 2003: Tamao Yoshida (Japan, 1919–2006)
• 2007: Pina Bausch (Germany, 1940–2009)
• 2011: Tamasaburo Bando V (Japan, born 1950)
• 2015: John Neumeier (U.S., b. 1942)
• 2019: Ariane Mnouchkine (France, b. 1939)

Thought and ethics

• 1988: Paul Thieme (Germany, 1905–2001)
• 1992: Karl Raimund Popper (U.K., 1902–1994)
• 1996: Willard Van Orman Quine (U.S., 1908–2000)
• 2000: Paul Ricœur (France, 1913–2005)
• 2004: Jürgen Habermas (Germany, born 1929)
• 2008: Charles Margrave Taylor (Canada, born 1931)
• 2012: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (India, born 1942)
• 2016: Martha Craven Nussbaum (U.S., b. 1947)
• 2021: Bruno Latour (France, 1947–2022)