TOP names in the world of fashion, science and the law are on a list of people to be honoured by Huddersfield University.

The university’s 2008 Honorary Awards will see 14 people receive honours for their achievements in their respective professions.

Also, a further three former professors are to be awarded the title of Emeritus Professor.

This is an award handed to a member of staff who has retired and who is deemed to have served the university with particular distinction.

The recipients come from a cross-section of backgrounds and specialist subjects, from science and law to fashion and sport.

Each will be given their award at the university’s graduation ceremonies, where they will be joined by over 6,000 other graduates.

Colin McDowell, who is one of the country’s biggest and most respected fashion commentators will receive recognition with an honorary Doctorate of Science.

As well as being the creative director of Fashion Fringe, a scheme set up in 2004 in a bid to reinvigorate the fashion industry in the UK, Mr McDowell is Senior Fashion Writer for the Sunday Times Style magazine and chairman of the Costume Society of Great Britain.

Oxford University Fellow Prof Richard Dawkins will also receive an honorary Doctorate of Science.

The controversial ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer has a bestseller to his name, as the author of The Selfish Gene, which popularises the gene-centred view of evolution.

The theory holds that natural selection acts through differential survival of competing genes.

Over the years Prof Dawkins’s theories have provoked a great deal of interest inside the scientific world.

Former Bishop of Oxford Lord Richard Harries, who lived in Huddersfield for a short while at the end of the Second World War, is on the list for an honorary Doctor of Civil Law award, as is famous barrister Baroness (Helena) Kennedy.

Her most publicised cases include the Brighton Bombing, the Michael Bettany espionage trial and the bombing of the Israeli embassy.

The university’s Barnsley campus will be honouring local talents, as it hands out awards to former international cricket umpire Dickie Bird and Huddersfield-born journalist Robert Cockroft, who is now editor of the Barnsley Chronicle.

Mr Cockroft will receive the honorary Doctor of Letters award, while Dickie Bird will receive honours as a Doctor of Civil Law.

The emeritus professorships will be handed to scientist Ted Charsley, designer Tim Moscovitch and historian David Taylor.

The 2008 graduation ceremonies will differ to previous years, with some ceremonies taking place as early as July, from the 14th to the 18th, and additional ceremonies having to wait until November, where they will take place between the 17th and 19th.