Not really an answer, but one could say that a scientist should conduct their research with one hungry eye on the Nobel Peace Prize.
(Obviously, this is a quip; cf medical research etc etc. But I think it conveys the spirit pretty well)
conduct their research with one hungry eye on the Nobel Peace Prize.
Specifically the Nobel Peace Prize is pretty much discredited nowadays, it became a rather meaningless political gesture.
http://www.mathunion.org/general/prizes/2014
On August 13, 2014, at the opening ceremony of the [International Congress of Mathematicians](http://www.icm2014.org)) the Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize and several other prizes were announced.
A full list of awardees with short citations:
Fields medals:
Artur Avila
Quanta Magazine on Artur Avila
Manjul Bhargava
Quanta Magazine on Manjul Bhargava
Martin Hairer
Quanta Magazine on Martin Hairer
Maryam Mirzakhani
Quanta Magazine on Maryam Mirzakhani
Nevalinna prize:
Subhash Khot
Quanta Magazine on Subhash Khot
Gauss Prize:
Stanley Osher
Chern Medal Award:
Phillip Griffiths
Leelavati Prize:
Adrián Paenza
In addition to that, Georgia Benkart was announced as the 2014 ICM Emmy Noether lecturer.
It might be interesting to note a curious fact about the new group of Fields medalists:
However, this unusual diversity of nationalities does not necessarily translate into a corresponding diversity of institutions, since (according to wikipedia) three out of four winners work in (or at least are affiliated with) universities that have already had awardees in the past.
Some notes on the works by Fields medalists can be found on Terence Tao's blog.
A related discussion on Hacker News.