Professor Stephen Hawking will have his career honoured at the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards.

The world-leading physicist and author has defied debilitating motor neurone disease to reveal the secrets of the universe over a career spanning more than half a century.

He will be presented with the lifetime achievement honour at Monday’s awards.

Stephen Hawking
( Stronger in/PA)

Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne, who played Prof Hawking in the film The Theory Of Everything, said: “Professor Stephen Hawking has inspired millions of people all over the world with his extraordinary refusal not to let his condition dictate the terms by which he lives his life.

“He lets nothing stand in his way and he does it all with his extraordinary, infectious passion and brilliant humour.”

Fellow cosmologist and television presenter Brian Cox said: “With no doubt about it he is one of the best physicists of the 20th century and now the 21st century.”

Eddie Redmayne Stephen Hawking
(Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

Prof Hawking was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in 1964 at the age of 22 and he was given just a few years to live.

Yet, against all odds, he celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age.

Despite being wheelchair-bound, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser, he wrote a plethora of scientific papers that earned him comparisons with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

He will join the Prince of Wales, Prime Minister Theresa May and other famous faces at the awards at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

:: The Pride of Britain Awards 2016, will be broadcast at 8pm on Tuesday on ITV