Candidates are nominated via a form. A jury of experts selects the three top candidates among the nominees. The assessment is based on the following: degree of deviance, resistance to criticism, commercial interest, radius of action, pseudoscience, and hazard potential. In the course of a public award ceremony, three candidates are presented by a eulogist in an ironic speech. The three candidates can comment on their nomination. Thereafter the winner is announced, and they are given a golden statue with a board in front of the head and have the option of making an acceptance speech. In 2012, the jury of experts included
Heinz Oberhummer (physicist), Werner Gruber (physicist),
Johannes Grenzfurthner (artist) and the eulogists Mario Sixtus (journalist), El Awadalla (writer) and Niko Alm (entrepreneur and activist). In 2012, an additional "lifetime achievement prize" was awarded for the first time. This prize recognizes a person who, according to the jury, "made a name with particularly impressive resistance to scientific facts over decades". The award was granted in 2012 by the Austrian Consumer Information Consortium (Verein für Konsumenteninformation) and since 2013 by the German Consumers' Union (
Deutscher Konsumentenbund). The Austrian branch of the
Cochrane Collaboration was a cooperation partner in 2015. ==Winners and nominees==