Michael assumed the directorship of Manchester Business School on January 1, 2007. Prior, he was Professor of Public Policy, Business and Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with appointments on the entrepreneurship faculty of the Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the College of Arts and Sciences. He had served as founding chairman of the consolidated programme in Public Policy, founding director of the University's Centre for Competitive Economies, and the Carl H. Pegg Professor of City and Regional Planning. He also taught on the Economics faculties at Duke University and the University of Maryland, been a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar (New Zealand), a Reynolds Fellow, and a USIA Fellow (Bulgaria) and was also a visiting professor at Witschaftsuniversit at Wien. Michael received his AB (architecture and planning) and MPA from Princeton University, and his MCP (planning) and Ph.D. (economics) from the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Luger was a professional officer at the Greater London Council in the 1970s, and the director of a planning agency in his native Pennsylvania. He has served on the boards of several major public sector and not-for-profit organisations and has been a consultant and adviser to national, state, regional and local governments throughout the world, and to major multi-national corporations. He also is immediate past president of the membership group of the Association of Public Policy and Management.

Micahel has published over 100 refereed articles, chapters, and books. His chief research interests are in the application of science and technology to regional economic development, infrastructure planning and finance, and entrepreneurship and new enterprise development. He also has published widely in environmental impact and public policy.

Michael is on the editorial boards of several major regional and public policy journals and has served on advisory panels for the National Research Council and National Science Foundation in the USA.