Dr Pilarski is being honoured for her dissertation "The Libellus carminum of Eugenius of Toledo as a way of coping with life and spiritual practice". The prize is the most important international award for young academics in theology and religious studies. The "Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise" is awarded annually to 10 young academics from all over the world for outstanding dissertations or the first post-doctoral work in the field of "God and Spirituality (broadly understood)".

20 reviewers from currently 15 countries select the award winners. The prizewinners are honoured in a festive ceremony in the Alte Aula of Heidelberg University. In recent years, the award has mostly gone to universities such as Princeton, Yale or Oxford. This is the second time that a theologian from the University of Regensburg has received it. Dr Pilarski is also the only winner from a German university this year.

The award ceremony will be followed by a colloquium with the prizewinners at the International Science Forum Heidelberg (IWH), where they will present their next research projects and discuss them with some of the evaluators and members of FIIT.