The Marlowe Keynes Prize

Vestigium Humanitatis Aeternum, a Iuventute Futura Memorandum

“An eternal mark upon humanity, remembered by the youth of the future.”

Purpose

The Marlowe Keynes Prize honors a living individual whose work has left an eternal mark upon humanity; a contribution so profound that future generations will continue to study it, draw strength from it, and recognize it as a permanent advancement of the human species.

The Prize reflects the mission of the Marlowe Keynes Society: to equip young people with the ideas, examples, and role models that define humanity’s most important progress. Each laureate becomes a fixed point in the intellectual landscape through which future cohorts will orient their own ambitions and responsibilities.

Philosophy

Inspired by the world’s most distinguished honors, yet defined by its own purpose, the Prize recognizes contributions that:

• Transform what humanity is capable of
• Deepen human understanding
• Advance the condition of our species in a lasting, structural way

Named for John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas reshaped the modern world, it carries forward the belief that rigorous thought, principled judgment, and imaginative action can influence civilization for centuries.

The Prize exists to ensure that the greatest contributions to markets, science, human welfare, and institutional design are not only acknowledged in their time, but remembered by the generations of young people who will inherit the consequences of those ideas.

The Standard of the Prize

The Marlowe Keynes Prize is reserved for individuals whose work meets a singular and uncompromising standard:

A contribution that advances humanity and will be remembered by the youth of the future.

In evaluating potential laureates, the Prize looks for:

1. A Permanent Advance for the Human Species
   The work must represent a civilizational step forward; an insight, discovery, or creation that changes humanity’s trajectory in a way that cannot be undone.
2. An Imprint Felt Across Generations
   The contribution must carry an enduring vitality, remaining relevant and indispensable even as decades pass and new generations confront their own challenges.
3. A Legacy That Cannot Be Forgotten
   Future young people, including students, builders, scientists, entrepreneurs, and citizens, must be able to look upon the laureate’s work as a source of orientation and understanding.
4. A Transformation of Human Thought or Action
   The work must change how humanity thinks, chooses, allocates, governs, discovers, or imagines. It must alter not only what we know but how we know.
5. An Elevation of Human Dignity and Potential
   The contribution must expand human flourishing—whether through greater safety, deeper knowledge, wiser stewardship of risk, or broader opportunity.

Selection

Each year’s laureate is chosen jointly by:

• The Head of the Marlowe Keynes Society
• The most recent Marlowe Keynes Prize laureate

Together they form the Prize Council for that year, selecting a recipient whose work satisfies the Prize’s civilizational standard. Deliberations are confidential. The Prize may be withheld in any year if no candidate meets the required threshold.

The laureate is announced at the annual Marlowe Keynes Symposium, where they receive:

• A bust of John Maynard Keynes
• The Marlowe Keynes Medallion, engraved with the official motto
• A place in the living canon studied by every future cohort of the Society

The prize winner will be announced on the last day of January. The inaugural winner will share comments that will be preserved in video for posterity. The announcement will be made via international press release in tandem with the winner being personally contacted by the society.

In the event no appropriate winner is selected, a press release will be issued in December announcing that according to internal proceedings no candidate could be identified that satisfied the criteria. In this way, the prize is not forced by time, but retains the scarcity that matches the remarkable and rare aspects recognized in the Marlowe Keynes Recipients when they are identities and honored.