Fields Medal

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement. The Fields Medal Committee is chosen by the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union and is normally chaired by the IMU President. It is asked to choose at least two, with a strong preference for four, Fields Medalists, and to have regard in its choice to representing a diversity of mathematical fields. A candidate's 40th birthday must not occur before January 1st of the year of the Congress at which the Fields Medals are awarded.

The medals and cash prizes are funded by a trust established by J.C.Fieldsat the University of Toronto, which has been supplemented periodically, but is still significantlyunderfunded.  The discrepancy in 2018 was made up by the University of Toronto andthe Fields Institute.

The name of the Chair of the Committee is made public, but the names of other members of the Committee remain anonymous until the award of the prize at the Congress.