Polanyi was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in chemical kinetics. He shared the prize with Dudley Herschbach of Harvard University and Yuan T. Lee of the University of California. The trio were honoured for "their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes." Polanyi's contributions were centred around the work he did developing the technique of infrared chemiluminescence. This technique was used to measure weak infrared emissions from a newly formed molecule in order to examine energy disposal during a chemical reaction. Polanyi's Nobel lecture upon receipt of the award was entitled "Some Concepts in Reaction Dynamics."