Glittering prizes

De Montfort University has awarded an honorary master of arts degree to Rose Hill, British Marathon record-holder and winner of silver medals in the Barcelona Paralympics and Berlin Marathon.

The Royal Academy of Engineering has awarded a senior research fellowship at the University of Nottingham to Zelia Aquino, a chemical engineer working on coal emissions.

Oxford Brookes University has awarded honorary degrees to: Joanna Lumley, actress; Claire Rayner, agony aunt; Prue Leith, cook; Clive Booth, vice-chancellor of Oxford Brookes from 1986-1997; Sir Tony Hoare, computer scientist; John Comerford, town planner; Imran Khan, solicitor for the parents of Stephen Lawrence; Max Stafford-Clark, theatre and artistic director; Baroness Usha Prashar of Runnymede, first civil service commissioner and former chair of the Parole Board of England and Wales.

The Royal Society has awarded the following: Sir Alan (Rushton) Battersby (Copley Medal), for pioneering work in detailing biosynthetic pathways to all major families of plant alkaloids; Wilson Sibbett (Rumford Medal), for research into ultra-short pulse laser science and technology; Keith Usherwood Ingold (Royal A Medal), for work on the mechanism of reactions involving free radicals; Geoffrey Burnstock (Royal B Medal), for development of hypotheses challenging the accepted views on autonomic neurotransmission; Timothy Berners-Lee (Royal C Medal), for his invention of the worldwide web; Steven Victor (Ley Davy Medal) for invention of new synthetic methods applied to the synthesis of complex natural products; Brian Charlesworth (Darwin Medal) in recognition of his distinguished work on selection in age-structured populations; Sir William Stanley Peart (Buchanan Medal), for contribution to the foundations of understanding of the renin angiotensin system; Nighel James Hitchin (Sylvester Medal), for contribution to many parts of geometry; Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao (Hughes Medal), for his contribution to the field of materials chemistry; Martin Nicholas Sweeting (Mullard Award) chief executive officer of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, University of Surrey.