Professor Bill Lucas

Bill is a researcher, education thought-leader and prolific writer.

In the last decade Bill’s focus has been on understanding more about the dispositions all young people need to thrive in life and how to develop them. The model of creativity developed by Bill and colleagues was published by the OECD as an influential working paper (2013) leading to a four-year, eleven-country OECD study into fostering and assessing creative thinking. In 2017 Bill was appointed to be the co-chair of the new PISA 2021 Test of Creative Thinking, which will be influenced by his model of creativity.

Bill is also an academic adviser on creativity to Arts Council England, adviser to the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation and to the Church of England, the chair of Eton’s research and innovation centre, a patron of the Pegasus Theatre in Oxford, chair of The English Project and a member of the LEGO Foundation’s advisory board.

Bill travels extensively to present key notes and facilitate workshops, most recently in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Philadelphia, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Qatar, Auckland and Dubai.

With Ellen Spencer, Bill is the author of Teaching Creative Thinking: developing learners who generate ideas and think critically. His acclaimed critique in 2015 of the education system in England, Educating Ruby: what our children really need to learn, written with Guy Claxton, asks challenging questions about the future direction of schools. Zest for Learning: Developing curious learners who relish real-world challenges, published in Autumn 2019, continues this theme.