Bill Lucas

Bill Lucas (born 1956) is a social entrepreneur and author. He is a professor of Learning and Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester. He is the co-creator of Expansive Education Network and a founding partner of a Bill Lucas Partnership Ltd. He is also an international adviser to Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in Australia and to the OECD/CERI on creativity.

In 2011 his book, rEvolution: how to thrive in crazy times won a CMI Management Book of the Year award. In 2014 he was awarded an international fellowship by the International Specialized Skills Institute of Australia in recognition of his work in vocational education. His framing of engineering as a number of engineering habits of mind was selected as one of the big ideas of the decade in engineering education by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 2016. Educating Ruby was selected for a special Open Dialogue edition of The Psychology of Education Review by The British Psychological Society in 2016.

Education Lucas received his Honors Degree in English Language and Literature from Trinity College, Oxford, in 1978 and his Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Oxford University in 1980. He has an Ed.D. (Hon) from De Montfort University (2001). In 1997, he founded the Campaign for Learning and was its chief executive till 2002. In the same year, he became the founding partner of Bill Lucas Partnership Ltd. Apart from entrepreneurial and academic positions, Lucas holds advisory and administrative positions advising OECD and PISA, chairing Eton's Tony Little Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning's advisory board and leading fellowship learning for the THIS Institute at Cambridge University. Lucas is an academic advisor to Arts Council England and was co-author of the first report of the Durham Commission on Creativity in Education in 2019. In 2020, he became Chair of the advisory board at Global Institute of Creative Thinking. He is also a trustee of the English Project, of Winchester Academy Trust and Learning Adviser to Winchester Cathedral.

Research Lucas's research expertise includes a wide array of topics including dispositions for learning, (such as creativity, tenacity and zest), pedagogy, parental engagement in schools, the English language, STEM and vocational education. His work is focused on the habits of mind of successful learners and the role schools play in cultivating these habits.

Lucas is known for a number of conceptual developments emerging from the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester including a theory of vocational pedagogy; a model of five creative habits of mind; a framing of engineering as a series of habits of mind; the habits of an improver; a four-dimensional model of tenacity; and a framework for zest for learning.

The five-dimensional model of creativity was the initial framework used by OECD in a four-year study in schools across eleven countries, Fostering students’ creativity and critical thinking.

Awards and honors Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts 1996 - Guardian Jerwood Award for outstanding leadership in voluntary sector 2014 - International Fellowship, International Specialized Skills Institute, Australia 2017 - Co-chair, PISA 2021 Creative Thinking Strategic Advisory Group, OECD, France 2020 - Chair, Advisory Board, Global Insititue of Creative Thinking, United Kingdom