German Berrios, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, has been presented with Peru's highest national honour.

The award of the Order El Sol del Peru recognises his lifetime achievement in his field. It commends notable merit in the civil and military spheres. Professor Berrios has been made a Grand Officer of the Order, the highest rank available for civil achievement.

His research has focused on the psychiatric complications of neurological disease, and the history and structure of the study of mental illness.

Professor Berrios was born in Tacna, Peru, and studied medicine and philosophy at the University of San Marcos in Lima. Since 1977 he has taught at Cambridge, in the departments of Psychiatry and the History and Philosophy of Science.

He is a consultant neuropsychiatrist at Addenbrooke's Hospital, a Life Fellow of Robinson College, and fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, British Psychological Society and Academy of Medical Sciences.

For the last 18 years, he has been Chairman of the Cambridge Research Ethics Committee. He has also been visiting professor at numerous universities across the world, including Heidelberg and Cornell.

He edits the international journal History of Psychiatry, which he cofounded in 1989 with Roy Porter, the eminent British historian of medicine.

In 2006, a chair in Descriptive Psychopathology was established at the University of Antioquia, in Medellin, Colombia, in his name.

The award is the oldest in America, having been established in 1821, and consists of five classes: Knight, Officer, Commander, Grand Officer, and Grand Cross.

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