Laureation Address: Frank Gardner OBE
Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws
Laureation by Professor Frank Lorenz Müller, Assistant Vice-Principal (Dean of Learning and Teaching) and Provost of St Leonard’s College
Friday 4 July 2025 – afternoon ceremony
Vice-Chancellor, it is my privilege to present for the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Frank Gardner OBE.
In the autumn of 2020, halfway through the UK’s second national Covid lockdown, I watched the BBC Two documentary Being Frank. Initially, the programme had caught my attention because of its excellent title, but I soon became totally absorbed by the topic it addressed with such sensitivity and fortitude – the experience of suffering and surviving sudden, life-changing disability – and by its creator and protagonist: today’s honorand, Frank Gardner OBE.
The story of Frank’s life is one of astounding energy, prodigious talent, admirable courage and enviable achievement. And it is the mark of the man that what happened to him in the Al- Suwaidi district of Riyadh on 6 June 2004 merely serves to accentuate this record, rather than end or deflect it.
On that day, Frank, who was then 43 years old and reporting for the BBC from Saudi Arabia, was ambushed by Al-Quaida gunmen who shot him six times. The bullets ripped through Frank’s shoulder, leg and torso, damaging his spinal nerves. His cameraman, Simon Cumbers, was killed. Frank recovered from his catastrophic injuries, after 14 surgical operations and months of rehabilitation, with his legs paralysed.
Astonishingly, Frank’s achievements in the course of the more than two decades since this dreadful day have exceeded even the amazing record before: by 2004 this Exeter University graduate had already become fluent in Arabic, had risen to the rank of Captain in the Royal Green Jackets, worked as the Middle East manager of Flemings Bank, and joined the BBC to become the corporation’s Middle East correspondent.
Since recovering from his injuries, Frank has continued to serve as one of the most authoritative voices analysing and explaining the politics of the Middle East, addressing a global audience and doing so frequently from the field. As the BBC’s Security Correspondent, he brings his particular expertise of the war on terror and its legacies to his journalism and also to his work as a prolific documentary maker on topics such as Somali piracy, Saudi Arabia or Putin’s nuclear threat.
As a side-hustle, Frank is a highly successful author both of non-fiction works , like his celebrated Blood and Sand of 2006, and of his bestselling novels Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak and Invasion.
As you can see, there must be a lot of spare time in Frank’s life, and he fills it with hobbies such as scuba-diving or sitskiing. He learned to master the latter sport after his recovery, and this led to his election as the honorary president of the Ski Club of Great Britain and to his appointment as a patron of Disability Snowsport UK.
Engaging with sports is only one way in which Frank keeps raising the perennial challenge of removing the myriad obstacles littering the path of disabled individuals. Drawing on his own experience as a frequent disabled traveller, Frank has prominently campaigned to remove the frustrations and indignities he has had to face at airports and aboard aircraft.
Talking of flight, did I mention that Frank is a passionate and expert birdwatcher, who is currently serving as President of the British Trust for Ornithology? Of course, he is not just an armchair twitcher, admiring our feathered friends from the comfort of some local hide. His quest to fulfil a lifetime’s ambition to see the elusive Bird of Paradise took him and his wheelchair to the jungle of Papua New Guinea. Hardly surprising then, that Frank also won a BBC Celebrity Mastermind competition in 2010. His specialist subject? Birds of the Middle East, of course.
We are not the first to recognise the range and depth of Frank’s achievements. In 2005, he was made an OBE for services to journalism and, six years later, the European Diversity Awards named him Journalist of the Year. His also received Spain’s El Mundo Prize for International Journalism and is a recipient of the United Arab Emirates’ Zayed Medal for Journalism. In 2018, the Chartered Institute of Linguists presented Frank with their David Crystal Award for his outstanding contribution to the field of languages.
It is a pleasure and an honour that the University of St Andrews can add to these markers of respect and celebrate the achievements of today’s honorand, and so…
Vice-Chancellor, in recognition of his major contribution to journalism, to helping audiences across the globe gain a better understanding of the Middle East, and to championing the cause of individuals who, every day, overcome disability when achieving astonishing feats, I invite you to confer the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on Frank Gardner OBE.