The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Wednesday it registered 285 candidates for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize by the Feb. 1 deadline, down from 2023 when it received 351 valid nominations.

The names of the 196 individuals and 89 organizations were not released, in accordance with committee practice.

Last year, the Nobel Institute received 351 valid nominations — 259 individuals and 92 organizations. The Oslo-based committee said the highest number ever received was in 2016 when they got 376 candidates.

A vast group of people can submit a nomination for the prize: heads of state or politicians serving at a national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Prize recipients and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

However, those doing the nominating may choose to make it public, raising publicity both for the nominee and the proposer.

For this year, entries include peace activists connected to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine among others.

Academics at the Free University Amsterdam have nominated the Middle East-based organizations EcoPeace, Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun for peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.

The International Peace Bureau, which won the prize in 1910, said it had nominated The Russian Movement of Conscientious Objectors and The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement for their commitment to the protection of conscientious objectors to violence, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Belarusian organization Our House, was also nominated for the same reason.

The 2023 prize was given to imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for campaigning for women’s rights and democracy in her country. Her teenage children accepted the award on her behalf.

The peace prize and the other Nobel Prizes are handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

(AP)