Peter O'Toole

I've been at York for just over 15 years, and I've been in the role as Director of the whole facility for coming up to two years in the Spring. I'm not one of these dyed in the wool microscopists that loved microscopes as a kid. Actually, I loathed them. The technologies we had at school even at university undergraduate level were shockingly bad which meant I could never focus anything and didn't understand it. However, through my PhD, I had to use a microscope and fell in love with the fact I could use it. I could pimp it, operate it and take it to another level that others weren't doing and that's when I got my buzz for it. There's an inspirational course at EMBL, an EMBO funded course I was lucky to get on, and that changed my life. I realised a career in facilities and technology, driving technology and providing that to others.

We have probably got 180 different uses of the microscope alone, and we get co-authored maybe once every five years on a microscopy paper. Sometimes we put in significant input, and maybe we should have [got co-authorship].

However, does it matter? For this type of role, I don't feel as though we should be judged by publications ourselves. It's the publications of our users that matter to the department. They're the ones who are usually Ref returnable. They're the ones delivering the impact. Our emphasis is to make sure they get the best impact. So if we can increase the impact of a number of publications that's our primary job.

If I don't have a big enough user base we can't invest in technology which is only going to benefit a few - and financially that's going to kill me. Other times, where you see a technology and think that users will really grab it - you then start to do the bidding process. Ultimately you have to get all the academics on-side, without the academics, without the proof that it's going to deliver impact to their science then we don't bid.

One of the key things is when a user comes in, and they're excited about something they've just seen or done because either we've helped them do it or my staff have enabled them to do it. When they make an effort to come into the office to say 'this is amazing'. That's a real buzz.

There are two sides to this role. When you look at the budget sheet, and you know you're going to make the end of your finances comfortably and you have something spare to play with, that's also a bonus. You can't separate the two. You have to have financial responsibility as well as the excitement.