"The Shaw Prize" was established in 2002. It consists of three annual prizes: Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences. It honours individuals who have recently achieved significant breakthrough in academic and scientific research or applications and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind.

The Shaw Prize in Astronomy 2022 is awarded in equal shares to Lennart Lindegren (Professor Emeritus of Lund Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics at Lund University, Sweden) and Michael Perryman (Adjunct Professor, School of Physics at University College Dublin, Ireland) for their lifetime contributions to space astrometry, and in particular for their role in the conception and design of the European Space Agency's Hipparcos and Gaia missions.

Hipparcos, launched in 1989, measured the positions and motions of over 100,000 stars with accuracies two orders of magnitude better than ground-based observatories. Gaia, launched in 2013 and still operating, has measured the positions and motions of billions of stars, quasars and Solar System objects with far higher accuracy. The results from these missions offer an exquisitely detailed portrait of the distribution and properties of the stars in our Galaxy as well as unique insights into its formation and history, and impact almost every branch of astronomy and astrophysics. This award is also intended to honour the much larger community of astronomers and engineers who made Hipparcos and Gaia possible.