Professor Cooper collected his honour at a special ceremony with Her Majesty The Queen at Buckingham Palace on 11 November.

“This honour really means a lot to me – particularly as an American who has now made his home in Britain,” said Professor Cooper.

“It’s a real thrill and pretty humbling for someone like me who has come from a working-class background – with immigrant parents from the Ukraine and Romania – and being the first in my family to go to university.

“I’ve lived in the UK for 50 years, having moved to the UK as a student in 1964. So now I feel as if I have finally been accepted!”

Professor Cooper has been chair of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, an umbrella body of 46 learned societies in the social sciences representing 88,000 social scientists, since 2009.

In 2001 he was awarded a CBE for his contribution to occupational safety and health. He was also lead scientist on the Government Office for Science Foresight project, Mental Capital and Wellbeing, in 2008. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, was the founding President of the British Academy of Management and is currently President of Relate.

He is the author or editor of over 160 books and written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals. He is also a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV and radio. In September 2014 Professor Cooper was voted HR Magazine’s Most Influential UK Thinker.