Glittering prizes

The University of Durham will award honorary degrees this year to: Alan Cowey, Medical Research Council research professor at the University of Oxford (DSc); Stuart Hall, former professor of sociology at the Open University; Charles Handy, former professor of management at the London Business School (DCL); Roman Herzog, former president of Germany (DCL); Roald Hoffman, poet and Nobel laureate for chemistry (DSc); Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician (DSc); Miriam Stoppard, health-care author and broadcaster (DSc); and actress Dame Judi Dench (DLitt).

Dame Judi, who this year received honorary degrees from the University of Oxford and University of Wales , Cardiff, also receives an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Hull.

Others honoured at Hull are: Ronald Wing, chairman of East Riding Health Authority (DSc); Dame Josephine Barstow (DMus); Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel laureate for chemistry (DSc); Tom Paulin, poet and lecturer in English literature at the University of Oxford (DLitt); and Rene Remond, French political scientist (DLitt).

Leeds Metropolitan University has awarded honorary doctorates to: former Leeds United footballer John Charles; Bill Kilgallon, chief executive and founder of St Anne's Shelter and Housing Action; Lord Bhikhu Parekh, professor of political theory at the University of Hull; and Paul Shepherd, president of the Chartered Institute of Building.

Oxford Brookes University's Business School has awarded honorary degrees to Sir Martin Wood, founder of Oxford Instruments, and Stephen Dexter, accountant at Grant Thornton.

John Fleming, reader in medical physics and bioengineering at the University of Southampton, has been awarded the Norman Veall Medal by the British Nuclear Medicine Society.