The Scottish-German friendship was the focus of the presentation of the 4th Constance Council Prize. The godmother of the award was Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who honored a committed academic.
Constance (dpa/lsw) – Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon honored the Mainz lecturer Sigrid Rieuwerts on Saturday evening with the Constance Council Prize for European encounters and dialogue. The award winner has promoted German-Scottish exchange throughout her career, Sturgeon said in a video message. As this year’s prize sponsor, she had nominated the 61-year-old for the prize.
Rieuwerts has been involved with various programs for the Scottish-German exchange of students for years. Since 1997 she has been a lecturer in English-language literature and culture at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. “I’m speechless – and that happens very rarely,” said the academic in Constance. It is an honor to receive the award from the Scottish Prime Minister.
The Council Prize is endowed with 10,000 euros and has been awarded every two years since 2015. The award honors people or initiatives that have made a special contribution to dialogue in Europe. A mentor model provides for an internationally known personality to help the award winner’s work to gain more publicity. Cardinal Reinhard Marx and the first permanent President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, were also sponsors.
The award ceremony was actually planned for last year, but had to be postponed due to the corona virus.
