The International Center for Consciousness Studies establishes the Dennett Prize—an annual prize that is awarded to an outstanding scholar whose research has significantly advanced the understanding of the brain and consciousness.

The prize is named after renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024). Dennett’s work spanned philosophy of mind, cognitive science, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence. Across the board he challenged received ideas, and introduced new perspectives. His writing set a gold standard for intellectual clarity and scientific integrity.

The prize consists of a monetary award. The recipient is invited to give a Lecture at the annual conference of the ICCS. The recipient is chosen by a vote of the Dennett Prize Committee. The Committee consists, in the first place, of Susan Dennett, Keith Frankish, Giorgio Vallortigara, Nicholas Humphrey and Dmitry Volkov.

The inaugural winner of the Dennett Prize is Andy Clark, professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex, the author of groundbreaking works on embodied and extended cognition, artificial intelligence, robotics, and computational neuroscience.

The next competition for the Dennett Prize will be announced in autumn 2025.