n the former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, the Templeton Freedom Awards are helping drive and shape economic reforms at a crucial time when the region is asserting its independence from dominant Serbia. The Freedom Awards, inaugurated in 2003 with a four-year pledge of $2 million, are designed to reward and encourage non-profit research institutes worldwide.

In the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development has won three Templeton Freedom Awards—a total of $25,000 in prize money. “Every time we are getting something extra, we are investing it in extending our work, in our own advocacy activities,” says Dr. Petar Ivanovic, head of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. “For us, every single dollar has a special value.”

The Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development’s prizes were for effective public relations work, general institutional excellence and encouraging free enterprise, specifically for reducing bureaucratic impediments to business startups. According to Dr. Ivanovic, his independent think tank’s crowning achievement was to push the Montenegrin government to drastically streamline procedures for registering new businesses. It once took thousands of dollars and several months for a startup to become legal. Now, a new law requires the process to be completed in four days with a startup capital requirement of just one euro.

This scenario in Montenegro is being played out across the world as the Templeton Freedom Awards go to research institutes, think tanks and foundations from Ghana to Kyrgyzstan. The Templeton Freedom Prizes for Excellence in Promoting Liberty, administered by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, are given annually in four categories:
+ The Templeton Freedom Prize for Ethics and Values honors nonprofit research institutes that study the symbiotic relationship between free enterprise and enlightened systems of ethics and values.
+ The Templeton Freedom Prize for Social Entrepreneurship recognizes nonprofit institutes that encourage private, voluntary solutions to social problems.
+ The Templeton Freedom Prize for Free Market Solutions to Poverty celebrates nonprofit institutes that research and promote the use of free enterprise, sound legal institutions and entrepreneurship to combat poverty.
+ The Templeton Freedom Prize for Student Outreach rewards think tanks with groundbreaking projects that help students better understand the causes and consequences of individual freedom.


In addition, Atlas also administers the Templeton Freedom Award Grants for Institute Excellence which go annually to 10 innovative, relatively new think tanks that are doing especially effective work in their home countries. Brad Lips, Atlas’ chief operating officer, says that the Templeton Foundation’s approach to supporting non profit organizations overseas mirrors that of Atlas itself: it is far more effective to support indigenous think tanks than to open branches of existing U.S. think tanks.

The Templeton Freedom Awards are doing more than helping the winners, Lips adds. “This has really expanded Atlas’ reach and the impact that we are having,” says Lips. “The Foundation has prompted us to work in a more methodical way. We’re learning how to better assess the think tanks and their prospects.”

Click Here for a list of the Templeton Freedom Awards for 2006

www.atlasusa.org/programs/tfa/