Acton Academic Grants and Awards

Many cultures are exhibiting growing distrust and suspicion of economics, profit, limited government, rule of law, and free markets. Given this, there is a significant need to redeem these concepts by relating them to theology, human dignity, and the principles of a free and virtuous society. To encourage such developments, the Acton Institute's academic grants and awards programs support future religious, intellectual, and moral leaders who show potential in advancing understanding of this relationship. The Calihan Academic Grants provide financial assistance to graduate students and seminarians currently studying theology, philosophy, economics, or related fields whose academic work shows outstanding potential. Applicants must demonstrate the potential to advance the principles of the free and virtuous society. The Freedom and Prosperity Academic Grants are a collaboration between the Acton Institute and the Atlantic Council's Freedom and Prosperity Center, a new center which aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity. The Freedom and Prosperity Academic Grants are intended specifically to promote research using the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, either by examining the relationship between freedom and prosperity in general or by enhancing the robustness of the Indexes themselves. The Novak Award recognizes scholars early in their academic career who demonstrate outstanding intellectual merit in advancing the understanding of theology's connection to human dignity, the importance of the rule of law, limited government, religious liberty, and freedom in economic life. The purpose of the Mini-Grants on Free-Market Economics grant program is to enhance the effectiveness in the teaching and research of market economics for faculty at colleges, universities, and seminaries across the United States and Canada. The Acton Institute invites proposals from faculty in one or more of the following broad categories: course development and faculty research.