Today the Acton Institute announced the 2014 Novak Award winner. Full release follows:

A rigorous researcher and sound contributor to various academic disciplines and initiatives, Finnish native Oskari Juurikkala has been selected as the recipient of the 2014 Novak Award by the Acton Institute in recognition of his early promise as a scholar.

Educated in both law (London School of Economics) and economics (Helsinki School of Economics), he earned a joint Ph.D. in law and economics from the University of Eastern Finland in 2012.

Before starting his doctoral thesis, Juurikkala was a researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. He has also worked as economic policy advisor as well as researcher at the Institute of International Economic Law at the University of Helsinki. Much of his time has been spent teaching various university-level courses, including law and economics, intermediate microeconomics, business ethics, and the economics and politics of European integration.

Juurikkala has published on a range of topics including regulation of financial derivatives, venture capital, philosophy of economics, the history of economic thought, and natural law jurisprudence. He has also written a monograph on pension reform, entitled Pensions, Population, and Prosperity (Acton Institute, 2007). He is currently pursuing post-graduate studies in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.

Named after distinguished American theologian and social philosopher Michael Novak, the Novak Award rewards new outstanding research by scholars early in their academic careers who demonstrate outstanding intellectual merit in advancing the understanding of theology’s connection to human dignity, the importance of limited government, religious liberty, and economic freedom. Recipients of the Novak Award make a formal presentation on such questions at an annual public forum known as the Calihan Lecture. The Novak es with a $10,000 prize.

The Novak Award forms part of a range of scholarships, travel grants, and awards available from the Acton Institute that support future religious and intellectual leaders who wish to study the essential relationship between theology, the free market, economic liberty, and the importance of the rule of law. Details of these scholarships may be found here.