Templeton Prize facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Templeton Prize
Bernard d'Espagnat receiving the Templeton Prize from the Duke of Edinburgh in 2009
Presented by	Templeton Foundation
Country	United States
Reward	£1.1 million (2019)
First awarded	1973
Currently held by	Edna Adan Ismail

The Templeton Prize is a special award given every year to a living person. It honors people who have made amazing achievements that help us understand life's spiritual side. This could be through new ideas, discoveries, or helpful actions.

The prize was started in 1972 by John Templeton. He wanted to use science to explore the biggest questions about the universe and our place in it. Today, several foundations, including the John Templeton Foundation, help fund and manage the award.

The prize first honored people working in religion. For example, Mother Teresa was the very first winner. In the 1980s, the award started to include people who connect science and religion.

The prize has had different names over the years. It was once called the "Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion." Later, it became the "Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."

People from many different faiths have been judges and winners. These include Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims.

The money given with the prize is always more than the Nobel Prizes. John Templeton believed that the Nobel Prizes didn't focus enough on spirituality. As of 2019, the prize is worth £1.1 million.

The prize is usually given by Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace. Many people see it as a very important and desired award. The Washington Post even called it the most respected award in religion.

Some scientists, like Richard Dawkins, have said the prize mixes religion and science too much. They also said it goes to scientists who are religious or say good things about religion. However, Martin Rees, a winner in 2011, disagreed. He pointed out that some winners, including himself, are not religious. He also noted that their research in areas like psychology or biology is not about promoting religion.

Templeton Prize Winners

This table shows the amazing people who have won the Templeton Prize over the years. Each winner has helped us think more deeply about life's big questions.

Year	Laureate		Notes	Ref(s)
1973		Mother Teresa	Started the Missionaries of Charity; won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
1974		Frère Roger	Started the Taizé Community
1975		Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Former President of India, worked for peace with Pakistan
1976		Leo Joseph Suenens	A leader in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement
1977		Chiara Lubich	Started the Focolare Movement
1978	—	Thomas F. Torrance	Former leader of the Church of Scotland
1979		Nikkyō Niwano	Co-founder of the Risshō Kōsei Kai
1980	—	Ralph Wendell Burhoe	Started the journal Zygon
1981		Cicely Saunders	Started the hospice and palliative care movement
1982		Billy Graham	A well-known speaker on Christian faith
1983		Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Soviet writer who spoke out against the government; Nobel Prize winner
1984	—	Michael Bourdeaux	Started the Keston Institute
1985	—	Sir Alister Hardy	Started the Religious Experience Research Centre
1986	—	James I. McCord	Former president of Princeton Theological Seminary
1987		Stanley Jaki	Benedictine priest and astrophysics professor
1988	—	Inamullah Khan	Former secretary-general of the Modern World Muslim Congress
1989		Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker	A physicist and philosopher
	—	George MacLeod	Started the Iona Community
1990		Baba Amte	Helped people with leprosy build new communities
	—	Charles Birch	Retired professor from the University of Sydney
1991		Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits	Former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain
1992		Kyung-Chik Han	A Christian speaker and founder of a church in Seoul
1993		Charles Colson	Started the Prison Fellowship
1994		Michael Novak	A philosopher and diplomat
1995		Paul Davies	A theoretical physicist
1996		Bill Bright	Started the Campus Crusade for Christ
1997	—	Pandurang Shastri Athavale	A social reformer and philosopher, started the Swadhyay Movement
1998	—	Sir Sigmund Sternberg	A generous giver; started the Three Faith Forum
1999	—	Ian Barbour	Former professor of science, technology and society
2000		Freeman Dyson	A physicist, mathematician, and statistician
2001	—	Arthur Peacocke	Former dean at Clare College, Cambridge
2002		John Polkinghorne	A physicist and theologian
2003		Holmes Rolston III	A philosopher
2004		George F. R. Ellis	A cosmologist and philosopher
2005		Charles Hard Townes	A Nobel laureate and physicist
2006		John D. Barrow	A cosmologist and theoretical physicist
2007		Charles Taylor	A philosopher
2008		Michał Heller	A physicist and philosopher
2009		Bernard d'Espagnat	A physicist
2010		Francisco J. Ayala	A biologist
2011		Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow	A cosmologist and astrophysicist
2012		14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso	Spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner
2013		Desmond Tutu	Nobel laureate, social rights activist and retired Anglican archbishop
2014		Tomáš Halík	A Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and philosopher
2015		Jean Vanier	Catholic theologian, humanitarian and founder of L'Arche and Faith and Light
2016		Jonathan Sacks	Former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, philosopher, and scholar of Judaism
2017		Alvin Plantinga	American scholar, philosopher, and writer
2018		Abdullah II of Jordan	King of Jordan
2019		Marcelo Gleiser	Brazilian physicist and astronomer, Professor at Dartmouth College
2020		Francis Collins	A geneticist and physician
2021		Jane Goodall	An ethologist, activist and famous chimpanzee researcher
2022		Frank Wilczek	A theoretical physicist
2023		Edna Adan Ismail	A health-care advocate

See also

• List of religion-related awards