The world is this week passing judgement on one of the region's most famous sons.

Experts from across the globe are all having their say about circumnavigator, Captain James Cook.

Speakers from Hawaii, New Zealand, Canada and Germany are giving their appraisal of the life and times of the great man at a three day conference at The University of Teesside - in the wake of the popular BBC Two series, The Ship, in which a modern day crew retraced one of Cook's journeys in a replica of his ship, the Endeavour.

Dr Sophie Forgan called the conference "Captain Cook: Explorations and Re-assessments'' at the Middlesbrough campus.

She said: "The conference brings together new work on Captain Cook and examines his local region, the social and cultural background of his early years, together with fluctuations in his reputation and the varying ways he has been depicted in different countries.

"The conference will include a lot of new work, which gives us clearer assessment of Cok's early years, the significance of his training with a Quaker shipmaster and the whole North Sea experience. Also quite new will be a paper that details how Cook was seen in Russia.''

Professor Andrew Lambert, one of the speakers, was part of the team to make the BBC series.