Lyons studied social and political studies as an undergraduate at the University of Sheffield from 1990 to 1993 and in 2006 obtained his PhD for a thesis entitled Protecting Animals Versus the Pursuit of Knowledge: The Evolution of the British Animal Research Policy Network [REF].
His work won the Department of Politics' Andrew Gamble Prize for the outstanding thesis of 2006-2007, and the Walter Bagehot Prize for Government and Public Administration, awarded by the Political Studies Association [REF].