Joe Wicks MBE To Be Awarded Honorary Doctorate by St Mary’s University

The Nation’s PE Teacher Joe Wicks MBE is to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate by St Mary’s University, Twickenham in recognition of his contributions to the wellbeing of people across the country and charity.

Joe first graduated from St Mary’s in 2005 with a degree in Sport Science. He will be presented with his Honorary Doctorate in a ceremony in Westminster Cathedral at 10am on Thursday 21^st July.

He is best known for his energetic High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts, quick and healthy social media recipes, and his campaigning to get school pupils active. Through his brand The Body Coach, Joe has written thirteen books, regularly appears in the media, and hosts his own podcast and tv shows, exploring health and wellbeing.

During the first lockdown in 2020, he launched PE With Joe. This provided accessible and fun workouts, every day for families to do together at home and raised over £580k for NHS charities. Later in 2020, Joe went on to raise a over £2m for BBC Children in Need as he completed a 24-hour televised workout. Joe was awarded an MBE later in 2020 for his services to fitness and charity.

The award is the first its kind made by St Mary’s following its receipt of Research Degree Awarding Powers in 2021, which allows the University to confer its own doctoral degrees. The University has a strong and diverse research culture, and in the recent 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the majority of the research submitted for review was found to be world-leading or internationally excellent in its quality. St Mary’s was also found to be the highest riser on the Times Higher Education Research Quality ranking, rising up by 32 places.

Speaking of the award, St Mary’s Vice-Chancellor Anthony McClaran said, ‘We are delighted to be making this award to Joe. He is the perfect recipient of our inaugural honorary doctorate award. Joe is a brilliant role model to our current students, his work on wellbeing, charity and education closely aligns with our core values of Excellence, Inclusiveness, Generosity of Spirit, and Respect, and we are proud of all he has achieved in his career so far.”