Chris McIntyre, the Dean of the University's Faculty for Creative and Cultural Industries, will tell the graduation ceremony that they are honouring an individual whose "voice remains as powerful in the music business now as when we first heard it on record 30 years ago."

McIntyre says that while Sharkey is perhaps best known as a performing artist, in a wide-ranging career he has also achieved success as a businessman and has acted as a Government advisor.

Sharkey says, "I ...