Warwick awards honorary degrees to leading figures

Warwick University will award honorary degrees to the ex-President of the General Medical Council Sir Donald Irvine, climate change researcher Rajendra Kumar Pachauri and British Museum Director Robert Neil MacGregor at the Winter Degree ceremonies on the 21st and 22nd of January.

Honorary degrees are awarded to distinguished figures as a mark of respect, and are equivalent to traditional degrees. They can also be beneficial to the University as they establish a link to a prominent individual in society.

Warwick has previously awarded honorary degrees to figures like Nelson Mandela, author Terry Pratchett, and RSC actor Alex Jennings.

Sir Donald Irvine will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Sciences for his work in medicine. He was a general practitioner in Northumberland for thirty-five years, before becoming Chairman of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1983, and subsequently President of the General Medical Council (the GMC) in 1995.

He was the first general practitioner to hold the office, which he kept for six and a half years. He is credited with the development of Good Medical Practice, which is the corner stone of modern medical regulation and education.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Sciences for his work on climate change.

He was the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with ex-US Vice President Al Gore, for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC).

Pachauri is currently the Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, an institution devoted to researching and promoting sustainable development.

Robert Neil MacGregor will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters for his work in the art world. Currently Director of the British Museum and Chairman of World Collections for the government, MacGregor is credited with helping bring the British Museum out of its financial crisis at the beginning of the decade.

He has handled difficult diplomatic situations during his time as Director, opening discussions with Greece about the Elgin Marbles and sending curators to Iraq in 2003 to assess the damage done to the country’s museums during the Iraq War.

The Winter Degree ceremony will be held in TES.