OXFORD professor Joshua Silver has been named one of the world's top innovators - for developing self-adjustable spectacles.

The invention, which makes adjusting a pair of spectacles similar to focusing a pair of binoculars, could enable one fifth of the world's population to see properly.

The spectacles won the physics tutor at New College, Oxford, a special commendation from the British Government in the Worldaware Business Awards earlier this year.

Now the specs have made the professor one of the only 11 finalists for the Saatchi & Saatchi Innovation in Communication Award.

He is in with a chance to win £35,000 cash and another £35,000 in services.

Prof Silver's project, which has been 13 years in the making, was chosen ahead of 200 entries and is the only British-based project on the final short-list.

Speaking to the Oxford Mail from the competition's launch in New York, Prof Silver, said: "It has taken an incredible amount of work but we are very close to implementing the spectacles. Recognition like as this is very nice and could help us to get us there quicker." One fifth of the world's population - about one billion people - need spectacles, but most are in the developing world and cannot afford to buy glasses or see an optician.

The professor's challenge was to make a pair of specs costing a few pounds that could be adjusted for focus by the wearer rather than by a specialist.

The revolutionary lenses that Prof Silver has invented contain a fluid encased in a thin elastic plastic membrane. The lenses are adjusted by changing the pressure on the fluid.

He has helped launched a company, Adaptive Eyecare, based at the Centre for Innovation, in Mill Street, Oxford, to develop, manufacture and market the spectacles.

And tests funded by the British Government, the World Health Organisation and several private companies, have already been successful in Ghana, Africa.

Prof Silver added: "The next stage is taking the technology and mass producing it. It has all been much slower than I expected but, thankfully, it has never stopped."

Other inventions in the competition, which will be judged by a panel including Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, include:

A hands-free computer mouse

An early warning seismic tornado detector

A hand-held translating pen

A miniaturised computer keyboard.

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