Honorary title (academic)

Honorary titles (professor, president, fellow, lecturer and reader) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in many of the universities and colleges of the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, New Zealand, Japan, Denmark, and Canada.

Examples of such titles are honorary professor, honorary president, honorary fellow, honorary senior research fellow, honorary lecturer, honorary reader, (normally applies to non-teaching staff, who give occasional lectures), visiting fellow (normally applies to students carrying out further studies and research programmes), and industrial fellow.

In the UK, this is the highest title to be awarded to individuals whom the university wish to appoint, honour, and to work with. These individuals are not university staff nor employees. An external person is usually recommended by an internal university academic staff, and recommended for approval by the head of department, for which the documents are then forwarded to faculty dean, vice president and president (or deputy vice chancellor) for approval.

Examples of UK universities who award honorary professorships are University of Essex, University of Manchester, Brunel University, Middlesex University, University of Bristol, Leicester University, and University of Exeter. Procedures for evaluation and approval are overseen by university personnel or registrar office. Appointments are made formally by an appointment letter, for a fixed period of time (usually three years) and renewal is possible. Honorary professors are expected to contribute to the department of the university through giving seminars and joint research with university staffs. Requirements vary from university to university but contributions are expected from the appointee.

In Taiwan, more titles are used to recognise different levels of individuals. They are (in descending order of hierarchy):

In China, top universities like Fudan University, Tsinghua University and Peking University have awarded honorary professorships. Recent recipients include Peter Bruce from Oxford, Reinhart Poprawe from Aachen Germany, Thomas Sargent and Anwar Ibrahim.

In Australia, Australian Catholic University, University of Queensland, RMIT, University of Western Australia, University of Wollongong, University of Canberra and Macquarie University all allow the appointment of honorary professors.

In New Zealand, University of Otago, University of Waikato, and University of Auckland also have provisions for the appointment of honorary professors. Recently, Richard Taylor was appointed honorary professor at Massey University. Mike Murphy of the Mitochondrial Biology Unit at University of Cambridge was appointed to honorary professor at University of Otago in 2016.