Dr Lau was associate professor at the Teesside University (UK) and The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. He also acted as the Reader in Economics in the Univerdsity of Huddersfield.  He has over 20 years of academic experience in finance, economics and business-related subjects in the UK and abroad. He has participated in University Leadership and Management Programmes (e.g., leadership in staff mentorship, REF Champion, PhD programme admission director, research centre director among others). Dr Lau is featured in the list of the top 2% of scientists in the world, published by Stanford University in 2023 (ranked 177^th in the field of finance). He also ranked in the top 1% of economists (for the last ten years publications) according to IDEAS RePEc tables and ranked second in Hong Kong.

Most of his recent research has been in the fields of Financial Economics, Financial Technology, International Finance, Energy Economics, Tourism Economics, and Financial Econometrics. Dr Lau published over 150 papers in SSCI/SCI peer-reviewed journals. He has amassed an h-index of 43 and over 7,000 citations. His publications have appeared in ABS4 and ABS3 journals such as International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money, Economic Letters, Journal of International Finance and Economics, Annals of Tourism Research, and Journal of Travel Research, among others.

Dr Lau also served as the Founding Associate Editor of Eurasian Business Review (ABS listed), and the current Associate Editor of Asian Economics Letters and Heliyon. He is the guest editor for Sustainability, Frontiers in Psychology and Frontiers in Public Health. Furthermore, Dr Lau has been a reviewer for internationally reputable journals such as Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, European Management Review, Energy Economics, Economic Letters, and Journal of Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Dr Lau secured research grants and over GBP 170,000 in research income, including funds from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Government of Turkey. At the University of Huddersfield, he had the opportunity to develop leadership skills by leading a team of postgraduate researchers (PGRs) or early career researchers (ECRs). This has resulted in increased submissions to high-ranked journals. Dr Lau also served as PGR Admission Lead for Economics and the REF Champion. Moreover, he successfully supervised numerous PGR projects.