Honorary degrees

University of the West of England

DEd: Jack Taylor, former principal of Redland College, Bristol; Brian Simon, emeritus professor of education, University of Leicester.

University of Leicester

DLitt: Sue Cook, journalist and presenter of Radio 4's Afternoon Shift, president of the London Union of Youth Clubs, patron of Parents at Work and ambassador for the Prince's Trust; Michael Watson, chairman of Kettering Hospital NHS Trust, former chairman of the British Library Board, president of the Historic Houses Association (1982-88), trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1983-91).

DSc: Raymond Baker, chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, professor of organic chemistry, fellow of the Royal Society; Heather Couper, professor of astronomy at Gresham College (1993-96), broadcaster, TV producer and writer, president of the British Astronomical Association (1984-86) and the Society for Popular Astronomy (1987-89); Jeff Hoffman, project scientist on the European Space Agency's EXOSAT satellite, astronaut, mission specialist on the shuttle Discovery; Dai Rees, secretary to the Medical Research council (1987-96), chairman of the science policy group for Unilever Research (1979-82) and director of the National Institute for Medical Research (1982-87).

LLD: Carol Galley, vice chairman of Mercury Asset Management Group plc and chairman of its UK institutional division; Rosalyn Higgins, judge of the International Court of Justice, former professor of international law at the University of Kent and at London School of Economics, member of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights; Stephen Brown, president of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice; Patrick Coldstream, director of the Council for Industry and Higher Education (1986-96), joint founder of Fullemploy and South East Training, columnist on the Financial Times; Richard George, chairman and managing director of Weetabix Ltd and chairman of Whitworths Holdings Ltd, member of the management board of the Prince's Trust and vice chairman of Northamptonshire Prince's Youth Business Trust.

LLM: Anita Tasker, magistrate, member of the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on the selection of magistrates (1984-90), chairman of the Northamptonshire Bench (1984-89), chairman of the Northamptonshire Police consultative committee and deputy lieutenant.

MA: Jack Birkenshaw, cricket manager of Leicestershire County Cricket Club. He played for Yorkshire between 1961 and 1980 and for England between 1972 and 1974.

City University, London

DSc: John Fox, chief medical statistician at the Office of National Statistics and director of the Census Population and Health Group, former professor of social statistics (1980-88) and founding director of the university's social statistics research unit; John Finbow, managing director and co-founder of City Technology, former member of staff in the department of chemistry; Robin Milner, head of the department of computer science at the University of Cambridge, chairman of the research assessment panel for computer science, former lecturer in mathematics at the university; Willem Frischmann, chairman and managing partner of Pell Frischmann Group Ltd; Ron Dennis, managing director of the McLaren Group of motor-racing engineering and marketing companies; John Tusa, director of the Barbican Centre, former journalist and manager at the BBC.