He founded the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials and served as its inaugural director for 8 years.

[20] Lu, who helped found and is a board member of the Australian Research Council (ARC), won its Federation Fellowship in both 2003 and 2008.

Bernard Parke noted that unlike the town's previous twinning agreement, the public and council consultations had been by-passed for the partnership with Dongying.

[35] Other councillors also criticised the expedience, as they had not been informed of the intentions to twin with the city and had been in talks with other potential partners for some time, plans that had to be scrapped.

Lu's involvement was criticised as lacking "openness and transparency", with some councillors also asserting that "due diligence" in the approval of the city had not been performed.

[37] In 2016, Lu's pay and bonuses at the University of Queensland, totalling AUS$736,600, came under fire in a piece discussing the university "crying poor ... [but giving] their senior executives larger and larger pay packets while doing everything in their power to squeeze the salaries of their employees"; the article noted that Lu and many of his peers earned more than the heads of government departments and business CEOs.

[38] In 2018, Channel 4's Dispatches broadcast a report on the pay and expenses of British university officials, including revealing that Lu was given £1,600 to relocate his family dog.

[40] In an article about the documentary's findings, The Guardian listed various expenses but concluded that "Few, though, can beat the £1,600 spent on relocating a pet dog from Australia to Britain".

[44] The controversy reappeared in early 2019, specifically for Lu, when the University of Surrey announced that they would have to fire staff because of a deficit.

[49] The all-staff vote was approved by all three trade unions represented at the university, in a meeting held with the largest member attendance seen.

[41] In December 2018, Lu, who has previously advised the Chinese government, said that he supported the theory behind its new social policy but raised concerns over how efficiently it could be enforced.