Honorary degrees

University of Ulster

DLitt: Keith Kyle, professor and reporter on the BBC's Panorama programme; Catherine McGuinness, Dublin High Court judge, chair of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, member of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland; Anthony Lester, baron, Queen's counsel, special adviser to the Standing Committee on Human Rights in Northern Ireland. Seamus Deane, writer.

DUniv: Kathleen Kelly, manager of the South East Belfast Trust; Adele Dalsimer, professor at Boston College, Yeats scholar; Elizabeth Shannon, professor and United States co-ordinator of the Reaching Common Ground Initiative; Jean Elizabeth Mayhew, for her distinguished contribution to public life; May Blood, community activist on the Shankhill Road; Aideen McGinley, chief executive of Fermanagh District Council and chairperson of the Northern Ireland Millennium Committee; John Hume, leader of the SDLP and MP; Alan McClure, president of Perfecseal; Paul McWilliams, chairman of LEDU, member of the Industrial Development Board; Martyn Turner, Irish Times cartoonist and co-founder of Fortnight magazine; George Quigley, chairman of the Ulster Bank, member of the Dearing national committee on higher education. Alan Elliot, permanent secretary at Northern Ireland DHSS; Margaret Holmes, chair of NI Pensioners Convention.

Dsc: Donald Acheson, chief medical officer; Patrick Dowling, vice-chancellor, University of Surrey.

EdD: David Mehaffey, principal of Fleming Fulton School, Belfast; Wilfred Mulryne, principal of the Methodist College; Anne Murray, principal of Oakgrove Integrated primary School, Londonderry; Fergus McArdle, principal of St Patrick's Grammar School, Downpatrick; Olive Sayliss, principal of Newtownabbey Community High School; Patrick Murphy, professor and director of the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education.

University of Salford DLitt: Kent Nagano, musical director of the Halle Orchestra.

DSc: Alan Cockshaw, recently retired chairman of AMEC plc; Terry Melia, former chief inspector of the Further Education Funding Council; Ann McLaren, president of the European Development Biology Organisation and chair of the British Fertility Society; Tom Husband, professor and former vice-chancellor of the university; John Squires, former principal of University College Salford; Norman Haste, project director for Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5.

MA: Bill Sang, chief executive of Salford Royal Hospitals; Ann Ratner, co-founder of Creative Hairdressers; Christine Coates, director of Coates Engineering.

MSc: Ewan Holt, former lecturer and examiner in environmental health.

University of Birmingham DDS: Jairam Reddy, vice-chancellor and rector of the University of Durban Westville.

DEng: Jeffrey Edington, managing director (technology) British Steel plc; Michael Latham, member of parliament for Rutland and Melton; Peter Lillford, head of exploratory food science, Unilever plc; DLitt: Philip Barker, archaeological adviser to the Diocese of Worcester, Worcester Cathedral Archaeologist, fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries; Susanna Millar, scholar and researcher in developmental and experimental psychology, honorary senior research fellow in the university's school of education; DSc: Rudolf Mossbauer, professor and physicist, joint winner of the Nobel prize for physics (1961); Paul Nurse, director-general of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund LLD: Michael Bichard, first permanent secretary of the merged Department for Education and Employment; Rodric Braithwaite, expert on Russia and former ambassador in Moscow, former senior adviser to Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, chairman of Morgan Grenfell Securities; Sebastian Brock, authority on the theologies, text and cultures of the Eastern Orthodox Churches; Michael Mustill, life peer, lord of appeal in ordinary, honorary professor in law at the university; Margaret Smart, director of the Catholic Education Service; MD: Keith Peters, chair of the National Kidney Research Fund, member of the Medical Research Council, chair of the National Radiological Protection Board.

University of Nottingham DEng: John Burland, professor of soil mechanics, Imperial College; DLitt: Kate Adie, chief news correspondent for the BBC DMus: Colin Matthews, composer DSc: John Andrews, professor of geological sciences at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Colorado; David Hendry, professor, econometrician, Nuffield College, Oxford; Trevor Jones, director general of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries, former research director of the Wellcome Foundation; Tony Marmont, special professor and responsible for establishing Midlands Renewable Energy Technology Transfer; Klaus von Klitzing, director of the Max-Planck Institute, Stuttgart and 1985 Nobel laureate in physics; Ian Wilmut, Roslin Institute.

LLD: Emeka Anyaoku, secretary general of the Commonwealth; Andrew Buchanan, lord-lieutenant and keeper of the rolls for Nottinghamshire; Harold Garfinkel, professor of sociology, University of California; Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, former professor of law at Queen's University, Belfast.

MA: Ian McGeechan, director of Rugby at Northampton Rugby Football Club and British Lions coach; Helen Reeves, director of the National Association of Victim Support Schemes.

Staffordshire University DLitt: Leszek Balcerowicz, former professor of economics at Warsaw School of Economics, now minister of finance and deputy prime minister; Bob Burgess, founding chair of the UK Council for Graduate Education and chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's postgraduate training board; Peter Cheeseman, director emeritus of the New Victoria Theatre, Newcastle under Lyme and chairman of the National Council for Drama Training; Kenneth Grange, founding partner of Pentagram, design group; Nell McCafferty, journalist with the Irish Times, novelist, playwright and librettist.

DSc: Helen Sharman, astronaut.

DTech: Anthony Bamford, chairman and managing director of JCB; Marie-Noelle Barton, manager of the National Women in Science and Engineering Campaign at the Engineering Council; Bernard Lovatt, founder of Faraday Technology; Bill Frindall, cricket statistician, BBC broadcaster.

DSport: Tanni Grey, winner of the London Marathon Wheelchair Race, 1998, Imran Sherwani, international hockey player and .gold medallist at the 1988 Olympic Games; DUniv: Stanley Clarke, chairman and chief executive of St Modwen Properties Ltd.

LLD: Pauline Collins, head of the university's law school 1983-88, HMI in further and higher education 1986-91, now chief training officer at the Law Society.