Professor Checkland honoured
Published 2 June 2004
Professor Peter Checkland, one of Lancaster University's best-known academics, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Czech University of Economics.
Professor Checkland, an Emeritus Professor at Lancaster University Management School, received the honour at a ceremony in Prague, attended by the Vice-Chancellors of all the Czech universities and by the deputy British Ambassador.
Professor Checkland taught in the Management School for 30 years after 25 years working as a manager in industry.
"I could not have had my second career in research and teaching at Lancaster without having had the real-world experience in the synthetics fibre industry," he said.
At Lancaster Professor Checkland led the research team which developed a new way of tackling problem situations faced by managers - Soft Systems Methodology. The SSM approach is now used and taught worldwide.
Though retired, Professor Checkland is still active in teaching and research. He teaches on several Lancaster programmes, including the Managing in Action course [now called Leading in Action] on the Lancaster MBA. He is also working with the NHS and helping a London borough to rethink its delivery of its services to make them more 'citizen-friendly'.
