oslo in the throes of a cash crunch the librarians at oslos nobel institute for a time donned gloves and tended to the gardens after the landscapers were laid offthe prestigious institution behind the nobel peace prize has been hard hit by rising costs and funding cuts made worse by the expense of running its vast and old officeswith staff reduced from eight to five people since the 1990s it is now turning to norways parliament for support raising concerns about the institutions independencefor the past 20 years our income has been reduced while our costs have continued to rise nobel institute director olav njolstad told afpwithout additional income our cash flow will be exhausted in two or three years time he told afp from his office lined with history books on adolf hitler and the cold warnow it is under pressure to sell its historic yellowtinged building near the citys lush royal palace park which has hosted nelson mandela and the dalai lamagiven out at gilded ceremonies attended by norwegian royalty the nobel peace prize has been won by dozens of people and organisations since 1901 including barack obama malala yousafzai and the world food programmeit will be awarded this year on october 8the nobel institute in oslo handles the administration to support a fiveperson committee that selects the peace prize winner the awards for science and literature are handled by separate committees and promotes research into peacemost of the institutions funding comes from an annual grant of 53 million swedish crowns 523000 euros 605000 by the nobel foundation in stockholmthe swedish chemist and engineer died in 1896 bequeathing money to establish the prize in norway along with awards for literature and science in swedenbut the funding was cut drastically in 2013 in the wake of the 20078 financial crisis and hasnt risen sincewhat money there is doesnt stretch as far due to the impact of inflation and ballooning pension costsnjolstad is now appealing to parliament to step in to fill the yawning budget gap but it has raised serious concerns about the institutions autonomyit is possible that in some future period there would be some pressure from one political group or another said dan smith of the stockholm international peace research institutewhen money is given then you can expect that there would be a greater voice he told afpin line with alfred nobels will parliament already appoints the committees membersfor decades it has made a modest contribution to the institutes library but njolstad has now asked for a substantially larger annual handout of eight million norwegian kroner 789000 euros 913000 which will be considered by parliament in the coming monthshe insists the grant would only be used for running costs and would not compromise the committees independenceother institutions in society are financed sometimes up to 100 percent by the state but nobody questions their independence njolstad said using the examples of the courts and academic researchindependence from politics is a cardinal value