Student Life
Honorary Degree recipients announced for 2026
The University of Oxford has announced its 2026 honorary degree recipients, with seven individuals to be conferred with degrees at the Encaenia ceremony on 24th June.
The honourees come from a wide variety of careers. Those awarded include former world number one tennis player Billie Jean King; economist and Nobel Laureate Professor Daniel Acemoglu; and former chief executive of GSK, Dame Emma Walmsley DBE. They are joined by dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta CBE; biochemist Professor Katalan Karikó and Nobel Laureate Professor Shuji Nakamura; and Emmy nominated filmmaker and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The University has been granting honorary degrees since the 1400s, whilst the Encaenia ceremony can be dated back to the 16th century, assuming its current form around 1760.
Recipient Billy Jean King won 39 Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles, including winning a record 20 Wimbledon championships. She is also known for campaigning to equalise prize money in professional competitions across both womens’ and mens’ professional championships. Carlos Acosta was awarded a CBE in 2014 and retired from Classical Ballet in 2016, but continued to choreograph and perform.
Professor Acemoglu was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2024 alongside two others for “studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”. Fellow recipient Professor Nakamura was also awarded a Nobel Prize, for Physics in 2014, for emitting energy-saving efficient blue light-emitting diodes, whilst Professor Karikó won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries enabling nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines.
Dame Walmsley worked at GSK for 15 years and served as Chief Executive Officer of GSK for 9 years, retiring in December 2025. She is joined on the list of honourees by Henry Louis Gates Jr, known for his work as a literary critic, professor and history, as well as a literary critic. Gates was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking” in 2022 for his work as Executive Producer for the documentary Frederik Douglas: In Five Speeches.
Honorary degree recipients are recognised for their distinction in their field or service to society. Previous honorees include former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and Monty Python comedian Sir Michael Palin. Decisions on recipients of honorary degrees are made by a selection committee. Encaenia 2026 comes after Lord Hague awarded eight honorary degrees in February this year in a Special Honorary Degree Ceremony to celebrate the beginning of Lord Hague’s term as Chancellor at the University.
The ceremony involves the heads of colleges, university dignitaries and holders of Oxford doctoral degrees in Divinity, Civil Law, Medicine, Letters, Science, and Music. The honourees assemble and walk in procession to the Sheldonian Theatre. There, they are introduced by the Public Orator with a speech in Latin, and finally granted their new degrees by the Chancellor, Lord William Hague. Students at the University may attend the ceremony, with tickets released on 5th May.