The Pessoa Prize (, ), named after Fernando Pessoa, is recognized as the most important award in the area of Portuguese culture. Created in 1987 by the newspaper Expresso and the IT company Unisys, since 2008 the prize has been sponsored by Caixa Geral de Depósitos. It is granted annually to the Portuguese person who during this period, and in the course of previous activity, has distinguished him or herself as a figure in scientific, artistic, or literary life.
List of prize winners
1987 – José Mattoso, historian
1988 – , poet
1989 – Maria João Pires, pianist
1990 – Menez, painter
1991 – , archaeologist
1992 – António Damásio and Hanna Damásio, neurophysiologists
1993 – , philosopher and poet
1994 – Herberto Helder, poet – refused the award
1995 – Vasco Graça Moura, essayist
1996 – João Lobo Antunes, neurosurgeon
1997 – José Cardoso Pires, writer
1998 – Eduardo Souto de Moura, architect
1999 – Manuel Alegre, poet, and José Manuel Rodrigues, photographer
2000 – Emmanuel Nunes, composer
2001 – , president of the Cinemateca Portuguesa—Museu do Cinema, and a film historian 2002 – , scientist (medicine) 2003 – , constitutionalist 2004 – , writer 2005 – Luís Miguel Cintra, actor and set designer 2006 – António Câmara, professor and founder of the YDreams IT firm 2007 – Irene Flunser Pimentel, historian 2008 – Carrilho da Graça, architect 2009 – Manuel Clemente, Catholic Church prelate 2010 – Maria do Carmo Fonseca, scientist and Professor of the School of Medicine of Santa Maria 2011 – Eduardo Lourenço, essayist 2012 – Richard Zenith, writer and translator 2013 – Maria Manuel Mota, scientist (biomedicine) 2014 – , Physicist, Professor and researcher in the field of History of Sciences 2015 – , sculptor 2016 – , writer and translator 2017 – , architect 2018 – , scientist (biogeographer) 2019 – Tiago Rodrigues, theatre director 2020 – Elvira Fortunato, scientist (engineering) 2021 - Tiago Pitta e Cunha, jurist specialized in ocean issues