University Honours Dr Keith Howard

The University of Leeds is to honour Yorkshire-born businessman and philanthropist Keith Howard with an Honorary Degree at a special event in his honour on Monday.

The Honorary Doctorate of Laws will be conferred during a dinner for 100 people in the Howard Assembly Room - itself named in his honour - to celebrate his 80th birthday. Organised and hosted jointly by Opera North, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the University - three organisations which have greatly benefited from Howard's support - there will be a performance from soprano Amy Freston and a speech from the former Yorkshire and England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott.

Howard, who holds both bachelor's and master's degrees from Leeds, is the owner and majority shareholder of Emerald Group Publishing, the world's leading scholarly publisher in business and management, with an annual turnover of £25m. He is chairman of the Opera North Future Fund, an endowment fund created in 2008 to support and extend the work of the company through outreach and education work together with main stage productions. The Fund has also supported research opportunities for undergraduates in the University's Faculty of Performance, Visual Arts and Communication, and enabled the appointment of composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad and scenery designer Becs Andrews as the inaugural members of the University's Academy of Cultural Fellows. Howard's support has also helped Yorkshire County Cricket Club to establish the Yorkshire Cricket Museum, which opened in March 2011. Cricket supporters across the world can now benefit from this great resource, ahead of the Club's 150th anniversary in 2013. , please : Simon Jenkins, Senior Press Officer, University of Leeds, s.jenkins [a] leeds.ac (p) uk 0113 3437231