Meet the Team: Dr Hélène Crutzen

I'm the Institute Manager at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology. I've been here for eight years and my job consists of overseeing all of the business operations at the Institute and supporting the Institute Director, Prof Mike Hanna, to put together and implement the strategy - that's everything from Finance, HR and Education through to Health and Safety and the in between day-to-day operations.

Grays Inn Road has been a big part of my job from the beginning, under many different guises. It's been a journey for everyone involved, I think. I don't think many people have done something of this scale before.

I sit on both the Strategic Delivery Group and the Steering Committee for the programme and am involved with the planning for the operational management for the new building, working alongside the dedicated programme team.  

Initially, we worked with the architects on the shape of the building and what would be in it and now we’re focusing on the space layout and starting to get to grips with the actual operation of the new building ahead of its opening.

When we move in 2027, I’m really looking forward to so many of us being under the same roof. This is a huge opportunity for us to do things differently, to do them better and to pave the way for others at UCL to do the same. 

We've grown organically and exponentially as an Institute over the past decade and because we are located in different buildings, we've often struggled to have cohesive and consistent lab operations to support all of our eight research departments. 

This is something that I have been trying to address, since I started at the Institute, and we have already made huge strides in improving our lab support and health and safety procedures. Now we have an opportunity to build on this further, to better support the researchers.

I'm sure there will be some bumps and tweaks along the way, and we will need to keep this under constant review, gathering invaluable feedback, as needs and requirements evolve over time, but when we have successfully delivered this, I think it'll be a huge achievement and hopefully everyone will see the benefits.

The new building is obviously a major endeavour for us, but the Institute itself isn't moving or changing. This is just one new and significant component of a very large institute that's already arranged over quite a complex estate. 

The challenge therefore is to come up with an operating model that applies across the Institute.

The idea of the dual hub is really important. We have focused on maximising the space for our research labs and aiming to move everyone based in a wet research lab into Grays Inn Road, but our central professional services teams and our Institute Head Offices – including central finance, HR, our education hub, etc. – will all stay in Queen Square, along with all of our research activities that have a clinical focus. The way I see it, in practical terms, is that Grays Inn Road will be a mini campus; we all belong to the Institute, with the UKDRI linked to the Institute as well, so my hope is that we achieve a sense of community and continue to be one entity with interchangeable parts that are related and linked. 

One of the many things I’m looking forward to, when we finally move in, is having my first cup of coffee sitting on our third-floor roof terrace.  We don't currently really have an equivalent social space for our staff and students, where we can sit and get together with colleagues informally, and I think that will be a very welcome addition for all.