The Dr Leopold Lucas Prize, endowed with 50,000 €, is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding achievements in the fields of theology, intellectual history, historical research and philosophy. In particular, it honours personalities who have made a significant contribution to the promotion of relations between people and peoples and who have rendered outstanding services to the dissemination of the idea of tolerance through their publications. Previous laureates include renowned scholars such as Karl Rahner, Paul Ricoeur, Karl R. Popper, Michael Walzer, Michael Theunissen and Bishop Eduard Lohse, representatives of religious life such as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama or the Polish Archbishop Henryk Muszynski, as well as of culture and politics such as Léopold Sédor Senghor, the former Senegalese President, Richard von Weizsäcker and Joachim Gauck.
The award was established in 1972 by Consul General Franz D. Lucas, former Honorary Senator of the Eberhard Karls University, who died on 9 July 1998, on the 100th birthday of his father, the Jewish scholar and rabbi Dr Leopold Lucas, who died in Theresienstadt. The Faculty of Protestant Theology awards the prize, financed by the Dr Leopold Lucas Foundation, annually on behalf of the University of Tübingen.
