Over 1800 undergraduate and postgraduate students from Cambridgeshire will be soon be celebrating graduation.

They will don ceremonial graduation gowns and bring family and friends to participate in the various ceremonies at Anglia Ruskin University to mark the formal completion of their degrees.

The graduation ceremonies will be staged at the Guildhall, Cambridge on 20 and 21 October.

The students will represent the Ashcroft International Business School, the Faculty of Science and Technology, the Faculty of Health and Social Care and the Faculty of Arts Law and Social Sciences.

13 honorary awards will presented during the faculty-themed ceremonies to various individuals in recognition of their outstanding achievements.

Murray Grigor will receive an Honorary Doctor of Arts award for his ongoing contribution to the arts spanning over 40 years. He is an independent Scottish film-maker, writer and exhibition curator who has won international acclaim. Born in Inverness and a graduate of St Andrews University, he started his career with the BBC, leaving in 1967 to direct the Edinburgh International Film Festival, an event which he helped rejuvenate by recruiting a creative team which made it a key event in film culture well into the seventies.

His own first film in 1968 featured the then neglected Glasgow architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, winning five international awards and helping to re-establish the reputation of the architect, designer and artist, now celebrated world-wide as one of the most creative figures of the early twentieth century. Since then Murray has made over 50 films covering arts and architecture.

In 1976 he was awarded a UK/US Bicentennial Fellowship in the Arts to research a film on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, which led to his multi award winning feature documentary, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, with the architect's granddaughter Anne Baxter. For this he received a Citation of Excellence from the American Institute of Architecture, the first ever to be awarded to a film-maker.

Films on artists and architects include Space and Light, 1973, on St Peter's Seminary, Cardross; The Hand of Adam on the architecture of Robert Adam, 1975; E.P. Sculptor on the art of Eduardo Paolozzi which won the Rodin prize at the 1992 Paris Biennale; The Architecture of Carlo Scarpa, 1995 with Richard Murphy, which opened the Montréal Festival du Films sur l'Art. Murray has also made a number of humorous and polemical films and exhibitions.

Mark Wood will receive the award of Doctor of Business Administration for his outstanding business achievements.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and a Member of the Securities Institute. He is Chairman of Beta, Digitalis Media, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Benefit Solutions and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He is deputy chairman of Paternoster which he founded, and a non executive director of Chaucer, the Lloyds of London insurer and managing agent.

Born in Darlington County Durham, he is a distinguished alumni of Anglia Ruskin University having achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in 1974 from its Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, a forerunner institution of Anglia Ruskin University.

Mark went on to qualify as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London before becoming Treasurer at Commercial Union (now AVIVA). He has subsequently held several senior positions in global institutions working in London and New York for Barclays before becoming the Chief Executive of AXA UK and then Chief Executive of the Prudential's UK and European businesses.

In 2005 Mark founded and became Chief Executive of the hugely successful Paternoster Pension Investment Company, the first of a new breed of specialist insurance companies. Mark raised a record £500m in equity capital to fund the start up. Having established Paternoster as market leader, Mark has recently become Deputy Chairman and invested in and become Chairman of start up digital agency Digitalis and start up advertising agency Beta. Additionally Mark has been appointed Chairman of Jardine Lloyd Thompson's employee benefits and pension advisory businesses.

John Burnside will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters for his outstanding career. A talented and highly distinguished poet and novelist, John Burnside is one of the most prolific and extraordinary writers of his generation. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, he now lives in Fife.

As a springboard to his ultimate writing career, he obtained a BA (Hons) in English and European Thought and Literature which he also studied at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology.

After graduating, he hid his incredible talent as a writer by working in the technology sector as a software engineer. In 1995, he became a freelance writer after leaving his job in computer systems, and since then has been Writer in Residence at both the University of Dundee and the British Library, and is currently the Professor in Creative Writing at St Andrews University.

He has written many award-winning pieces. His first collection of poetry The Hoop published in 1988, won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, and his collection Feast Days became the winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1992. The Asylum Dance scooped the Whitbread Poetry Award; A Lie About My Father won The Saltire Book of the Year Award. His latest collections of poetry are Gift Songs and The Hunt in the Forest.

His popular prose works including Burning Elvis, a collection of short stories, The Locust Room, a novel set in Cambridge, and Living Nowhere, a story of friendship and loss.

Peter Campbell will receive an Honorary Doctor of Education award.

He is a survivor of the mental health system and, as a writer and poet, he has devoted his life and incredible talents to the pursuit of survivors' rights and justice.

Described as shy, self-effacing and highly intelligent, Peter Campbell has spent 25 years battling with the government and the mental health system for survivors' rights. Raised in the Scottish Highlands, Peter's late teenage years were spent confronting mental distress. Long stays in hospital and asylums, which curtailed his academic career at Cambridge, also prevented him from maintaining continuous paid employment. It was in 1983 that he changed his life and began an involvement with mental health activism coupled with poetry and performance which has lasted until the present day.

Peter was a member of Camden Mental Health Consortium in the 1980s, one of the early local survivor action groups. In 1986 he was a founder member of Survivors Speak Out, a national networking group and played a prominent part in the organisation over the next ten years. In 1991, he and three other survivor poets set up Survivors' Poetry, providing workshops and performances by and for survivors. It is still a flourishing group. Peter has always believed that involvement in collective actions of this kind with other survivors enabled him to turn his life around. By the 1990s he was able to construct a professional life as a freelance writer, consultant and trainer. He is a gifted poet and performer, writes extensively on mental health issues, and trains psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and other health professionals with a view to shaping better quality services for the future. He is honoured for his sheer strength of character and outstanding talent as a writer, performer and educationalist.

David Haye is a contemporary boxing legend known for his energy and professionalism and for being a role model to young people. He will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science award for his boxing success. He is currently WBA Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World.

Boasting the hand and foot speed of a middleweight and simply unimaginable power, he scooped and unified all the major world cruiserweight titles within an explosive four-month period, before venturing to heavyweight and capturing the World Boxing Association's (WBA) heavyweight title.

Born in 1980 in Bermondsey, South London, David Haye's progression towards the combat sports was a natural one encouraged by his parents. At one point he was steered towards martial arts but at just 10 years of age stepped into the Fitzroy Lodge boxing gym and quickly caught the bug. Over the years, Fitzroy Lodge would become his home. Articulate and intelligent, David realised the importance of school grades but was lured by the riches and accolades of boxing. He left school at 15 with no qualifications but enough grounding to understand that sport is business.

David Haye began his professional career as a cruiserweight in 2002. Blessed with a knack of ending fights in dramatic style and intent on taking risks, 'The Hayemaker' quickly became a UK favourite and ultimately The Ring magazine's Champion.

Cruiserweight fights saw him beat WBO title holder Enzo MAccarinelli and his high profile battle with Monty 'Two Gunz' Barrett signalled the arrival of David Haye in the heavyweight division. His title shot came against 23 stone world champion Nikolai Valuev in 2009. Overcoming the 'Goliath' of boxing in 12 rounds, he fulfilled his life-long dream of lifting the WBA world heavyweight title and now installed as champion, he looks to replicate his cruiserweight success and unify the heavyweight titles.

While enjoying his achievements, he is actively working to give something back to the sport and has used his entrepreneurial skills to develop his international 'Hayemaker' business which helps develop young talented boxers who are looking to become professionals in the sport. He has also given his time and support to Anglia Ruskin University's new Postgraduate Medical Institute which is helping to develop the expertise of the medical profession for the benefit of people in the East of England including top sportsmen and women.

Neil Carson will receive an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration award.

Neil Carson is the Chief Executive Officer of Johnson Matthey plc, a FTSE 100 listed company that he has helped to become the highly successful, global, environmentally driven business it is today.

For his dramatic and outstanding business achievements, he has been described by the Financial Times as the man with the 'golden touch'.

Johnson Matthey is a major player in the chemicals, precious metals and environmental engineering industry. It has also carved itself an enviable lead in the specialised business of supplying automotive catalytic converters, and is now one of the UK's leading contenders in fuel-cell technology.

Neil Carson grew up in south London and went to grammar school. Moving on to higher education, he went on to gain a BSc in Engineering from Coventry University and this opened the door for him to join Johnson Matthey in 1980. He was appointed Division Director of Catalytic Systems in 1997 after having held senior management positions in the Precious Metals Division as well as Catalytic Systems in both the UK and US. Neil was appointed Managing Director, Catalysts & Chemicals in 1999 and additionally assumed board level responsibility for Precious Metals Division in 2002.

Additionally he is a non-executive director of AMEC (FTSE 100 oil and gas services co) and he was Chairman of the Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production.

Neil Carson now lives and works in Cambridge where he is respected and revered as an international business phenomenon.

Colin Walsh will receive an Honorary Doctor of Arts award for his services to publishing.

He is co-founder of Book Production Consultants plc which offers an editing, design, production and print service from its Cambridge-base. The company has prospered since its formation, and has now produced in excess of 10,000 publications ranging from meticulously-crafted limited edition books, to PR promotions and academic papers.

An expert in publishing, Colin has created his own career and business success. He gained a BA in Psychology, joined The Spectator under the then editor Nigel Lawson, and then moved to book publishers Cambridge University Press in 1970. It was in 1973 that he co-founded Book Production Consultants with Tony Littlechild with capital of just £50, before joining the company himself some two years later.

Colin Walsh has written some ten books and acts as a consultant to many publishing houses and retail groups. Despite being the Managing Director of such a thriving company.

Grahame Davies will receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters award for his inspirational writing talent.

He is a Welsh poet, novelist, editor and literary critic who has won numerous prizes - including the Wales Book of the Year Award. He has been described as one of the 'clearest public poetic voices of his generation' with a talent for 'bringing a new world-view on Welsh life'.

Based in Cardiff, he has a degree in English Literature from Anglia Ruskin University, and a PhD from Cardiff University. He is author of 12 books in Welsh and English, including The Chosen People, a study of the relationship of the Welsh and Jewish peoples, a novel, Everything Must Change, about the French philosopher Simone Weil, and the popular work of psychogeography, Real Wrexham.

It was in the 1990s, he published his first volume of poetry arising from the 10 years he spent in Merthyr Tydfil in the south Wales Valleys, and he has since produced two subsequent volumes of hard-edged poetry.

Grahame is now a columnist for a range of titles and regularly reads and lectures worldwide, most recently on a North American tour featuring readings and artistic collaborations in Pennsylvania, Vermont and New York.

Bryony Pawinska will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science award for her services to the education of optometrists.

Bryony is the incredibly talented Chief Executive of the highly prestigious College of Optometrists.

The College of Optometrists is the Professional, Scientific and Examining Body for Optometry in the UK, working for the public benefit. Bryony joined the College following a role in education, involving work with two strong business and education partnerships. She was the Director of an occupational standards setting body, and was the Chief Executive for the Institute of Career Guidance, the most powerful organisation representing career guidance professionals in the UK.

She was a member of the Black Country Learning and Skills Council and a Trustee of the Guidance Council.

Through sheer drive and the determination to succeed, she is now considered one of the most successful business women in the nation; and was recently shortlisted for the Business Woman of the Year award in a highly prestigious award scheme: The Dods and Scottish Widows Women in Public Life Awards. The awards promote the role of women in business and recognise and celebrate the achievements made by them.

Juliet Stevenson CBE will receive a Doctor of Arts award for her achievements in television, film and drama. Once a 'promising new actor', she is now a name known nationwide.

Essex-born, she was educated in Surrey before joining the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). It was from here she emerged a strong and talented young actress, who shortly after began her remarkable career with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Although best known for her stage acting, Juliet has starred in many other roles for both film and television and combined this work with various roles for the BBC Radio, all of which highlight her immense strength and versatility. Significant stage roles include her lead performance as Anna in the UK premiere of Burn This in 1990, and as Paulina in Death and the Maiden, for which she was awarded the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress.

Ranked among Great Britain's most esteemed stage actresses, she is best known for her leading role in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply in 1990. Her other film successes include The Secret Rapture, Emma, Mona Lisa Smile, Infamous, Breaking and Entering and, one of her personal favourites, Bend It Like Beckham which had a huge impact on teenagers across the country. Last Year, she had a starring role in ITV's A Place of Execution, for which her performance was awarded at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.

She was awarded a CBE for her services to drama.

Lyndon Jones will receive an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration from the Ashcroft International Business School for his achievements in international education.

He is Chief Executive Officer of The Association of Business Executives (ABE), the professional membership body and examination board he founded 37 years ago.

ABE develops business and management qualifications at Certificate, Diploma, Advanced Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma level. Its qualifications provide progression routes to degree and Masters programmes worldwide, covering destinations as diverse as Trinidad, Pakistan, Cameroon and Mauritius.

Following service in HM Forces, Lyndon Jones enjoyed his own personal journey through higher education, first studying at Manchester University and then undertaking postgraduate studies at the Manchester College of Science and Technology. He obtained a teachers education certificate and for six years was Head of Department of Management and Business Studies at Manchester College. From 1965-1990 he rose to the challenge of a senior education role as Principal of the South West London College, a college of excellence and innovation offering higher education and training programmes to home and overseas students.

He has extensive experience as a consultant and trainer, having worked in Western Europe, South East Asia, the USA and Africa and has acquired many awards over the years.

Andy Wood will receive an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration award from the Ashcroft International Business School.

He gained an Executive Master of Business Administration degree, and went on to achieve a Doctor of Business Administration award for which he studied part time at Cranfield University for four years.

Andy Wood's first job was at Norwich Union now Aviva, one of Britain's largest insurance companies, where he undertook a variety of roles in customer service, purchasing, IT and sales management. He joined Adnams Brewery in 1996 with responsibility for developing its customer service and supply chain operations. He joined the Board in 2000 and became managing director in 2006. He became the Chief Executive earlier this year and is the only non-family member to get the top job there in modern times.

He is also the Chairman of a drugs and alcohol harm reduction charity and regularly takes lectures on the subject at a number of top business schools throughout the UK.