Overview
- The International Centre for Theoretical Sciences and multiple outlets confirmed on Saturday, October 24, that Sen received the 2026 Oskar Klein Medal after delivering the Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture in Stockholm on October 22.
- Sen is being honored for foundational work in string theory, including research on S‑duality, string field theory and the precise counting of black‑hole entropy.
- The Oskar Klein Medal is awarded annually by Stockholm University together with the Nobel Committee for Physics and has previously gone to leading figures such as Stephen Hawking, Peter Higgs and Kip Thorne, underlining the prize’s international standing.
- Sen holds the ICTS‑Infosys Madhava Chair at ICTS‑TIFR in Bengaluru and his long record of awards includes the Breakthrough Prize (2012), the Dirac Medal (2014) and India’s Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.
- While the medal boosts international recognition for Indian theoretical physics, Sen’s lecture and coverage note that string theory remains largely mathematical and that its key ideas about quantum gravity and black holes are not yet testable with current experiments.