O'Donovan, an Anglican priest, was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford from 1982 to 2006. O'Donovan is also a past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, and has been an active participant in Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue and other ecumenical work. Since 2000 he has been a Fellow of the British Academy.

His writings include Resurrection and Moral Order (Apollos, 1986, 1992), The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge, 1996), The Just War Revisited (Cambridge, 2003), The Ways of Judgment (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), and From Irenaeus to Grotius (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), a sourcebook co-edited with his wife, Joan.

The award -- named for Kuyper (1837–1920), a great yet controversial figure in the Calvinist renaissance which took place at the conclusion of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in The Netherlands -- is given each year through the generous gift of Rimmer and Ruth de Vries to a scholar or community leader who has contributed to the further development of Reformed theology, particularly as it bears on matters of public life, historical or contemporary, in one or several of the spheres of society. The de Vries' gift also established an endowed faculty chair and a grant fund for graduate students at Princeton Seminary.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in seven graduate degree programs.