Mr Michael Lucas

Professional biography

Mike joined The Open University Business School in 1997 as a regional academic based at the OU's office in Cambridge. From 1998 to 2008 he was closely involved with the design, development and expansion of the School's undergraduate business programme and in 2003 was appointed as its Teaching Director. Between spring 2008 and December 2023, Mike undertook the role of Associate Dean for Curriculum for the Faculty of Business and Law, with brief periods of secondment during that time to support the development of both the Apprenticeships and Policing curricula. He retains interests in curriculum innovation and the pedagogy of work-based learning

Research interests

Mike's published research includes contributions on community organisation, organizational ethnography and visual methods in organizational research. His main area of scholarship is practice-based learning and includes contributions to the development of work-based and professional learning curriculum at the OU, to the Work-Based Learning Futures network of UVAC (2005-8), and recently to the IfATE Trailblazer group for the Level 6 apprenticeship standard in leadership and management. In 2008-9 he was a Fellow of the OU's Centre of Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) in Practice-Based Professional Learning.

Teaching interests

In the past Mike has authored contributions to the following OU courses: Understanding Management (Y179 as chair), Understanding Business Behaviour (B200), Working and learning: developing effective performance at work (BU130 as co-chair), Managing in the workplace (B121 as chair), and Management Practice (B123). He was Teaching Director for Undergraduate Business and Management (2003-8), Director of Learning for the OU Centre for Policing Research and Learning (2015-17) and Teaching Director for FBL Apprenticeships (2017-18). He is currently chair of B329 Leadership in a Changing World.