University of Southampton academic Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been honoured for inventing the world wide web.

The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is awarded in recognition of 'outstanding advances in engineering that have changed the world and benefited humanity'.

Tim won the award jointly with Marc Andreessen, who was honoured for his work in inventing the Mosaic browser, and Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn and Louis Pouzin, who were honoured for their work in developing the internet.

The award presentation will be made by the Queen in the summer.

"I want the web to inspire and empower new generations of engineers — boys and, especially, girls — who will build, in turn, their own platforms, to improve our global society. I hope the message behind this award, along with the work we are doing with the World Wide Web Foundation and W3C, will assist in achieving the vision of a Web that is open, accessible and of value to all," said Sir Tim.

 Pic under CC2 by Knight Foundation