In the Netherlands, he received his MSc in Decision Support Systems in 1989 at the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, and his Ph.D. in information management in 1993 at the University of Twente with a doctoral thesis entitled "Semiotics applied to information systems development".
After graduation in 1993, Liu became a faculty member at the School of Computing of the Staffordshire University.
He is currently the Director for Strategic Initiatives, Henley Business School of the University of Reading.
He also founded and is now the Honorary Director of Informatics Research Centre (2014 to date), and was Deputy Director of Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (2009–2013), both being multidisciplinary research centres within the University of Reading.
He has been invited to deliver lectures in information systems and semiotics in China, Australia, Czech, France, Holland, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, Chile and Brazil.