Do scientists/researchers only get awards by application/nomination, or can their achievements ever speak for themselves?

Question

For instance, Katalin Karikó, key researcher in mRNA technology in immunology and therapies got a bunch of awards in 2021 as a result of the COVID19 vaccine being developed based on her work.

Did someone on Karikó's behalf fill out applications and nominations for each of these awards/prizes/medals, or had the publicity from her work just lead these organizations to pick her because they just know how impactful and important her work is?

Edit: I want to emphasize the question is not about self-nomination, it's about getting awards without applying or being nominated at all.

The question is, does anyone ever win awards/prizes/etc. because the accomplishment is so major and widely known that the committee just says "There's no doubt, this is the clear winner, it's so impactful that no nomination/application is required or expected."

The COVID19 vaccine based on mRNA work is a prime example. It literally affects every human being on the planet in a life or death way, right now.

Answer 1

In general, the process of awarding awards is as follows:

1. The organisation bestowing the award has an 'award committee' (which may deal with one or more distinct awards). Often this will include ex-officio representatives of the organisation and (perhaps) previous awardees.
2. The committee solicit nominations for the award. Usually there is a prescribed form for the nomination package, e.g. a one-page statement on why the individual deserves the award and a copy of their CV, plus a certain number of letters of support. There will usually be some restrictions on nominators: commonly, self-nominations are not accepted, and a nominee's recent collaborators/students/supervisors/etc may be excluded from writing letters of support. Often, nominators have to be connected to the awarding organisation in some way. Members of the award committee are often barred from supporting nominations directly, but they may be influential in encouraging others to make nominations.
3. The committee meets to consider such nominations as have been received, and select a worthy recipient.

Of course, when self-nominations are not accepted, people can (and do!) ask friends or colleagues to consider nominating them for particular awards.

In response to question edit: No doubt there are exceptions, but usually an awarding organisation will have bylaws (or similar) that stipulate the procedure that must be followed. The committee cannot disregard these. However, the individuals on the committee may choose to put less effort into advertising and encouraging nominations if the outcome is 'obvious', and the meeting to determine a recipient may be brief.

Answer 2

Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture and for this a committee voted to award him a Fields Medal but he turned it down. Since that was also a Millenium Prize problem, he was offered that award as well but similarly turned that down. So in a sense, his work spoke for itself but he just chose not to accepted the awards.

Answer 3

The vast majority of awards available to scientists are given out by scientific organizations. Eligibility is limited to dues-paying members of the organization, or a subset thereof. The award takes a small portion of the dues paid by members and returns them to a member.

Receiving the award is indicative of:

• willingness to pay dues to the organization
• popularity among a small number of organization's members who select the award recipient

A small minority awards available to scientists, like Nobel Prizes, do actually reflect major achievements. They are not self-nominated. In most cases, a scientist's achievements are recognized by publication in an important journal and the award of grants. These are "self nominated" in the sense that the scientist submits them to journals and funding agencies.

Answer 4

For prestigious awards, I'd suspect that self-nomination is rare, but nomination by someone in the community is very common and likely required in almost all cases. A committee is unlikely to choose on its own to avoid questions of bias, such as in-group bias.

A friend of mine won a top award in CS from ACM. A group of us were involved in his nomination and support for that nomination. He had no part in the process and was surprised when it happened. Certainly Nobel prizes work that way, though some people lobby for nominations.

For minor awards, however, self nomination might be acceptable and accepted. In the ACM, one can apply for Senior Member status (IIRC), though it has little prestige value. But Distinguished Member requires outside nomination.

But for some local things, such as teaching awards from a university, a committee might decide to give the award and the recipient will be surprised when it happens. This just happened to my daughter. This works locally since the community has knowledge of potential awardees and can easily gather more information.

But nomination in some form has to happen. They don't spring forth from the forehead of Zeus. It is possible that someone in the committee makes a nomination/recommendation, but, as said above, for prestigious awards they probably come from outside, perhaps, as in the case of my friend from several people who can support the reasons for the nomination.