The Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI) has been awarded a prize of the Templeton Freedom Awards Program given in the category of Institute Excellence. Three institutes from The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Serbia & Montenegro were other organisations from Eastern Europe which were granted the same award. Over 140 institutes from more than 50 countries took part in the Templeton Freedom Awards Program.
Supported and named after the pioneer of international investing, Sir John Templeton, the program rewards innovative and outstanding work of think tanks in countries throughout the world that promote the ideas of freedom. The Templeton Freedom Awards Program was launched in September 2003 with a four-year pledge from the John Templeton Foundation.
The Programme is directed by the U.S. Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Since 1981, this foundation has been the leading international organization for supporting independent think tanks advancing freedom.
LFMI has already received one prize from the John Templeton Foundation. In 2001 LFMI became a winner of the Sir John Templeton Foundation’s International Freedom Project, directed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. LFMI has been awarded a grant for a semester-long course „Individual, Society, Freedom, Market.” LFMI’s fellow workers have been giving this course in Lithuanian universities for four years now.