taking office in 2015, and comes largely because she was unable to travel to Canada herself to mark Canada's 150th birthday.

During a short photo-op before the meeting, Trudeau drew a laugh from the Queen as he told her about his first official appointment after his arrival in Scotland.

"I've been offered an honorary degree at the University of Edinburgh, which probably dismays a number of my former professors to see me as a doctor now, even honorary," Trudeau said.

The Queen said his getting the degree was "lovely."

Trudeau received the honorary doctorate in recognition of his advocacy for equality and diversity during a ceremony earlier Wednesday at the university.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in the convocation ceremony where he also received a honorary degree at the University of Edinburgh.(Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

It is Trudeau's first honorary degree and comes on the second full day of his trip to Europe this week for bilateral meetings in Ireland and the G20 summit in Germany.

Dressed in a red and orange robe, Trudeau told graduates of the school of social and political sciences to go out and make the world proud.

While Trudeau was inside the palace meeting with the Queen, a small number of protesters approached the gates holding placards calling for an end to the "tar sands" and to grant Indigenous rights.

It was but a tiny taste of what is to come for Trudeau at the G20 summit in Germany where tens of thousands of anti-globalization protesters have already started to descend on the northern port city of Hamburg.

As many