diff --git a/pie/default_settings.json b/pie/default_settings.json
index cc5279f..da1a848 100644
--- a/pie/default_settings.json
+++ b/pie/default_settings.json
@@ -124,10 +124,17 @@
   "optimizer": "Adam", // optimizer type
   "clip_norm": 5.0, // clip norm of gradient up to this value
   "lr": 0.001,
-  "lr_factor": 0.75, // lr schedule (decrease lr by this factor after `lr_patience` epochs
-  // without improvement on dev-set data)
-  "min_lr": 0.000001, // minimum learning rate
-  "lr_patience": 2, // patience for lr schedule
+
+  "lr_scheduler": "ReduceLROnPlateau",
+  "lr_scheduler_delay": 0, // Number of steps without using the lr_scheduler
+  "lr_scheduler_params": {
+    // needs to be adapted if lr_scheduler is not ReduceLROnPlateau
+    "mode": "max",
+    "factor": 0.75,
+    "patience": 2,
+    "min_lr": 0.000001
+  },
+
   "checks_per_epoch": 1, // check model on dev-set so many times during epoch
 
   // * Model hyperparameters
diff --git a/pie/settings.py b/pie/settings.py
index d2a266a..969d584 100644
--- a/pie/settings.py
+++ b/pie/settings.py
@@ -106,6 +106,12 @@ def check_settings(settings):
     if not has_target:
         raise ValueError("Needs at least one target task")
 
+    # backward compatibility
+    if "lr_patience" in settings:
+        settings.lr_scheduler_params['patience'] = settings.lr_patience
+    if "lr_factor" in settings:
+        settings.lr_scheduler_params['factor'] = settings.lr_factor
+
     return settings
 
 
diff --git a/pie/trainer.py b/pie/trainer.py
index 2dceb7e..4dffcf3 100644
--- a/pie/trainer.py
+++ b/pie/trainer.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 
+import inspect
 import os
 import uuid
 import logging
@@ -7,7 +8,6 @@
 import random
 import tempfile
 
-
 import tqdm
 
 import torch
@@ -150,19 +150,43 @@ def get_weights(self):
 
 
 class LRScheduler(object):
-    def __init__(self, optimizer, threshold=0.0, **kwargs):
-        self.lr_scheduler = optim.lr_scheduler.ReduceLROnPlateau(
-            optimizer, mode='max', threshold=threshold, **kwargs)
+    def __init__(self, optimizer,
+                 lr_scheduler='ReduceLROnPlateau',
+                 delay=0, **kwargs):
+
+        self.nb_steps: int = 0
+        self.delay: int = delay
+        lr_scheduler_cls = getattr(optim.lr_scheduler, lr_scheduler)
+        params = inspect.signature(lr_scheduler_cls).parameters
+        self.lr_scheduler = lr_scheduler_cls(
+            optimizer,
+            # pick kwargs that fit the selected scheduler
+            **{kwarg: val for kwarg, val in kwargs.items() if kwarg in params})
 
     def step(self, score):
-        self.lr_scheduler.step(score)
+        self.nb_steps += 1
+
+        # apply the step() method of the lr_scheduler when delay is reached
+        if self.delay and self.nb_steps <= self.delay:
+            return
+
+        if isinstance(self.lr_scheduler, optim.lr_scheduler.ReduceLROnPlateau):
+            self.lr_scheduler.step(score)
+        else:
+            self.lr_scheduler.step()
 
     def __repr__(self):
-        return '<LrScheduler lr="{:g}" steps="{}" patience="{}" threshold="{}"/>' \
-            .format(self.lr_scheduler.optimizer.param_groups[0]['lr'],
-                    self.lr_scheduler.num_bad_epochs,
-                    self.lr_scheduler.patience,
-                    self.lr_scheduler.threshold)
+        res = '<LrScheduler="{}" lr="{:g}" delay="{}" steps="{}"'.format(
+            self.lr_scheduler.__class__.__name__,
+            self.lr_scheduler.optimizer.param_groups[0]['lr'],
+            self.delay,
+            self.nb_steps)
+        for key in dir(self.lr_scheduler):
+            val = getattr(self.lr_scheduler, key)
+            if (not key.startswith('__')) and isinstance(val, (str, float, int)):
+                res += ' {}="{}"'.format(key, val)
+        res += '/>'
+        return res
 
 
 class Trainer(object):
@@ -200,8 +224,10 @@ def __init__(self, settings, model, dataset, num_instances):
 
         self.task_scheduler = TaskScheduler(settings)
         self.lr_scheduler = LRScheduler(
-            self.optimizer, factor=settings.lr_factor,
-            patience=settings.lr_patience, min_lr=settings.min_lr)
+            self.optimizer,
+            lr_scheduler=settings.lr_scheduler,
+            delay=settings.lr_scheduler_delay,
+            **settings.lr_scheduler_params)
 
         if settings.verbose:
             print()