Sir David McMurtry, the chairman and chief executive of Renishaw plc (www.renishaw.com) , is to receive an honorary doctorate for his services to design and innovation at the University of Huddersfield’s November award ceremony.

He is a visiting professor at Huddersfield, and Renishaw is a key industrial partner in the University’s EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology; the company now has the same role with the EPSRC-funded Future Metrology Hub — a £40 million research centre.

Sir David was employed at Rolls-Royce plc, Bristol, for 17 years, latterly holding the positions of deputy chief designer and assistant chief of engine design for all Rolls-Royce engines manufactured at Filton, Bristol.

After inventing the touch-trigger probe for co-ordinate measuring machines in 1972, he co-founded Renishaw with John Deer in 1973; today, the company employs over 4,000 people in 35 countries (2,800 of them are located in the UK).

Sir David is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the American Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

While at Rolls-Royce, Sir David was named as inventor or co-inventor on 47 patents or patent applications, and over 150 at Renishaw.