Susan Iversen

Neuroscientist/Experimental Psychologist to University Pro
Vice-Chancellor

Sue studied for a degree  in Natural Sciences and PhD in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge and then went to the US to carry out post doctoral studies at NIH in Washington and then Harvard Medical School. 

After that she returned to Cambridge and continued a research career as a fellow of Girton and then Jesus College. 

In 1983 she left Cambridge to help in the establishment of a commercial laboratory just south of Cambridge for the American pharmaceutical company Merck and & Co in the field of neuroscience research. 

Sue worked for Merck for 10 years as a Director of Research in behavioural pharmacology and left in 1993 to go to Oxford as Head of Experimental Psychology, a department which has a strong neuro-science focus. 

She acted as Head of the Department in Psychology until 2000 when she became a full-time Pro Vice Chancellor for research activities across the collegiate university, with a special responsibility for planning and resource allocation, the co-ordination of research infrastructure and the encouragement of interdisciplinarity.

Sue developed an interest in chemical transmission in the central nervous system and the effect of drugs on the brain as an undergraduate and was absolutely clear from a very early stage that she was going to work on the brain.  This led to an interest in the pharmaceutical industry.  At that time there was a very firm view that industry and academia were very different and she felt that people believed that if you went into the commercial world you were selling out. That prejudice has remained through most of her career so that in ’83, when she gave up her Readership in Cambridge to go Merck she was considered by many of her colleagues a traitor to her profession. 

Sue felt that the nineties saw a very radical shift in people’s attitudes towards the relationship between academia and industrial research.  In her view, this change was given a big push by government policies / research council policies.

Sue moved to the private sector because of the unique opportunity to contribute to the setting up of the Merck enterprise and design new laboratories with state of the art equipment and excellent resources.  It was also exciting. Merck prided itself on the quality of its basic research - although you weren’t free to do anything you wanted as she had been in Cambridge.  Projects had to be agreed by senior management and monitored for success.

Sue was very happy working at Merck but as she was then in her mid fifties she thought it was the last opportunity for a further career move. The thing she hadn’t done was run an absolutely top-notch academic department because she was a Research Director in Cambridge for all those years and so wasn’t actually running the Department.

The move to Oxford has increasingly meant a move into management.  Sue feels that the increase in commercialisation in universities is a good thing, and that Oxford remains at the forefront of the changes.  She sees moving between the sectors as much more common now, valued and a good thing if it suits you.