THE University of Sussex is holding its biggest ever graduation week with almost 4,000 students receiving degrees alongside a number of honorary graduates.

Honorary degrees were awarded to public figures during ceremonies over the past couple of days, including the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Debenhams designer John Rocha.

All of the degrees are being handed out by the comedian, author and broadcaster Sanjeev Bhaskar, who has been the university’s chancellor for the past eight years.

Yanis Varoufakis, professor of political economy and economic theory at the University of Athens, was awarded the honorary doctorate, Doctor of the University.

Mr Varoufakis said: “Academics can bring one ingredient into politics that is sorely missing: a concern for the unalloyed truth and for subjecting proposals and new ideas to rational scrutiny.

“Politics would be much improved if infused with a more scholarly attitude toward the merit of views, rather than on who has uttered them.”

Referring to opportunities for young people, he added: “The main challenge remains a time-invariant one - to find a job that you would love to do for free, and still get paid a decent salary to do it.”

Mr Varoufakis led Greece’s ultimately failed attempt to leave the European Union in 2015.

Mr Rocha, a former fashion student at Croydon School of Art in the 1970s, was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Sussex, - who validate Croydon College’s degree courses - for his innovative contribution to the design industry.

His journey began on a council estate in Hong Kong and he is now famous for his clothing range, Rocha John Rocha, sold at Debenhams stores across the UK.

He said: “There were ten of us in a small flat and I slept on a concrete floor until I was twelve.

“We were on the eleventh floor and had to go all the way to the ground floor to get water. Life in Hong Kong was very hard in those days. I am from a working-class family and I don’t think fashion should be elitist. Every time I get a taxi and the driver says they like my tee shirts, it gives me satisfaction.”

Other recipients of honorary degrees include investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, the director of the Institute for Research in Schools Becky Parker and motor neurone disease researcher Dame Pamela Shaw.